Redesign of TiddlyWiki

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

[Edit] read the original post under the line below

UPDATED: 2020-05-21

Google Document outlining the strategy for redesign: TW Rewamp Outline 📄

Link to the latest prototype (on Figma design tool): TW revamp v0.03📐

Link to the videos of the prototype: Prototype videos🎬

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Hello everyone!

I've just recently discovered TiddlyWiki (crazy it's been around for 15 years already!) and I am very pumped up about it! It's not only a great note taking tool, but it's also a powerful CMS + Static Site Builder!

I think that TW deserves and has a potential of reaching broader audiences! 

However, one of the biggest drawbacks for me is the design of TW. And not only the visual design, but also the whole experience of using it. The functionality and features seem very powerful (and I am just scratching the surface), but the first time experience of using the tool is not very pleasant. I really think we could greatly improve the visuals and usability of TW, to match the other modern tools, and people expectations.

This would address many of the root causes of these problems: Rethinking tiddlywiki.com

I am experienced UI designer and I am willing to volunteer on creating a new minimal and simple, yet still powerful TW theme!

I am looking for a developer who knows TW well and who wants to collaborate on creating this new theme. I code myself a bit, but it would be way more effective to collaborate with a bit more experienced coder.

If there will be more interest, I will share all the design files on Figma, so anybody can give feedback and we can improve the designs together!

Anyhow, I would like to know if anybody can also see the value in what I am talking about? 😊 

Cheers!

- Edgaras

[Mohammad]

Hello Edgar,

 Welcome to the community and great to know you are willing to create a new theme!

I may suggest to have a look at

https://dynalist.io/d/zUP-nIWu2FFoXH-oM7L7d9DM#q=theme

This is one of the best collection of Tiddlywiki resources on the net.

Using a good UI (theme) TW can play many roles like blog, notebook, website, database, image gallery, CMS and like that...

I highly support your idea and I think Tiddlywiki is very powerful and more important highly modular.

--Mohammad

[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]

Yay, welcome to the community, Edgaras! Fingers crossed you find a developer to partner with. A modern, intuitive UX design that makes it easy for new users to onboard would be awesome.

On Friday, April 24, 2020 at 8:43:43 PM UTC+1, Mohammad wrote:

Hello Edgar,

 Welcome to the community and great to know yoy are willing to create a new theme!

I may suggest to have a look at

https://dynalist.io/d/zUP-nIWu2FFoXH-oM7L7d9DM#q=theme

This is one of the best collection of Tiddlywiki resources on the net.

Using good UI (theme) it can plant many roles like blog, notebook, website, database, image gallery, CMS and like that...

[TonyM]

Edgar,

Welcome to the community. Whilst I am not a javascript developer I am what you may call a super user of tiddlywiki. I have a vision for a tiddlywiki layout design that would provide a great deal of flexibility and I have discussed it elsewhere. I think the following points are important.

• TiddlyWiki can already do or be many things
  This presents a dilemma, because how do you set a basic standard look for a chameleon?
• TiddlyWiki  is the answer to so many questions, but which question are you trying to answer?
• There are already innovative tiddlywiki layouts like a trello look alike, the Murri plugin and much more
• The traditional way to address the various needs is to publish themes, plugins or whole "editions"

Coming up with a new set of layout options needs a bit of design foresight and strategy. I have a vision for such a solution I would be happy to share if you want to consider taking it on. We can call on the community for support and expertise as needed, and of course I am ready to change my mind as the work evolves.

On the usability,

You may see I am a prolific contributor in the community helping new and experienced members a like. I/we have discussed improving the new user experience and the journey many times and we are aware of many of these failings but they are often a consequence of the tiddlywiki platforms flexibility. 

One way I would like to see the recent discussions evolve is a bit like how developers may use wordpress as the back end and write their own front end.

When it comes to static site generation, there are great mechanisms in tiddlywiki to do this already as no doubt people see, but to make it really powerful we need to improve and support the workflow and templates used to do this. 

Tiddlywiki as a platform, Software Development Kit, Personal Productivity tool, site generator, database.... interface design ... is almost infinite.

I would like to see a responsive theme that contains elements that come into use only if given content and obeys a set of rules that allows almost any design structure, with default that result in what we currently see, but a small set of changes transforms it.

Just some thoughts

Tony

[Mat]

Edgaras, first a big thank you for this offer.

IMO, Jeremy - i.e our lead developer - is the guy you're looking for. The main reason is not only that he is the lead developer and obviously knows TW better than anybody, but that he is the final decision maker on what changes that make it to tiddlywiki.com and into the software all together. I suggest you either ask him directly - or via the TW github if you start off with concrete mockups or perhaps very specific verbal descriptions.

<:-)

[Jed Carty]

I think that perhaps a design brief or something similar would be more effective for gathering collaborators.

The architecture of tiddlywiki as a piece of software makes everything a plugin and everything is changeable, and it is open source, so it really doesn't matter if something is accepted by Jeremy or any of the devs, you can make it anyway. Also I don't think that Jeremy has ever turned down contributions for new themes and the like as long as they are functional. At a minimum if it comes out well it can be linked to as a good first theme to use.

[Mat]

Jed Carty wrote:

it really doesn't matter if something is accepted by Jeremy or any of the devs, you can make it anyway.

But we're talking about tiddlywiki.com not TW, and the very front page at that, so for sure Big J has to approve it :-)

 

<:-)

[Jed Carty]

If it is something worth making what does it matter if it ends up as the design of tw.com or not? Anything done reasonably well would have use past just tw.com and in the best case asking permission means you wait around for an answer before doing anything instead of just getting it done.

Sorry this is off topic, but I always find it baffling that people would ask permission and I have seen it a lot in the past few days.

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

Thank you for the warm welcome everyone and your responses! 😊 

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First of all, thanks to Anne-Laure, for republishing the TiddlyWiki on ProductHunt, where it caught my attention and then invited me to this community! 

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This is one of the best collection of Tiddlywiki resources on the net.

Mohmmad, thank you for sharing this resource, it will definitely come in handy considering the key features and further into development.

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Tony, thank you for the inputs, your interest and open mind!

You are already mentioning bunch of great points:

• TiddlyWiki can already do or be many things

• This presents a dilemma, because how do you set a basic standard look for a chameleon? 

This is why I am so excited about, it's super powerful, but somehow it seems a bit overwhelming, with all the features shouting for the importance. The tool could be as blank as it can be, while displaying first possible actions, and then introducing complexity as you engage within a context. 

• TiddlyWiki  is the answer to so many questions, but which question are you trying to answer?

• There are already innovative tiddlywiki layouts like a trello look alike, the Murri plugin and much more

As I see it, TW should be as it is – super powerful personal notebook, with a possibility to quickly and simply publish static website, as if possible (don't know much about it) a collaborative writing tool. Some of the things that I see are missing:

1. Simple and intuitive interface that feels nice and simple to sit in front of every morning (e.g. Bear app, Notion, Typora)
   
2. Making sure that the notes are as modular and interconnected as possible with backlinks etc. (yet still simple). (RoamResearch achieves that quite well, but it can be better)
3. Yet, NONE of those powerful ones are free and personal tools for the new digital knowledge age. I believe everyone has a right to their own personal digital knowledge management, publishing and collaboration.

I've seen some of TW themes, but it feels more like as a surface redesign, but underlying issues are there. Yes, some corrections on usability and some nice features like sidebar are there, but many things like fonts, icons, animations, white space feels odd, as most importantly, not much is improved in the usability of editing. Also, obviously I haven't seen enough! Please share if something minimal exist already.

 I have a vision for such a solution I would be happy to share if you want to consider taking it on. 

I would love to hear your vision if you are willing to share! Both on the strategy and design, let's collaborate. We can discuss here + draft a more structured google docs + prioritize tasks on Trello + share the actual design vision and comment on Figma prototype.

One way I would like to see the recent discussions evolve is a bit like how developers may use wordpress as the back end and write their own front end.

Could you explain a bit more what do you mean here?

When it comes to static site generation, there are great mechanisms in tiddlywiki to do this already as no doubt people see, but to make it really powerful we need to improve and support the workflow and templates used to do this. 

I really want to dig deeper into the current state of art of TW's static site generation. It must be as simple as in any other SSG, but even simplier! I like what Publii is doing. You just write you site visually and then publish to GitHub Pages or SFTP as a static site with one click (+ first time simple settup).

Tiddlywiki as a platform, Software Development Kit, Personal Productivity tool, site generator, database.... interface design ... is almost infinite. 

I would like to see a responsive theme that contains elements that come into use only if given content and obeys a set of rules that allows almost any design structure, with default that result in what we currently see, but a small set of changes transforms it.

That's how I see it too! Simple, responsive, contextual, prioritised. There should no unnecessary switching "modes", viewing and editing should feel as one coherent flow. And all the power of the tool can come into the right place, but it should to be prioritised.

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Mat good idea! Is it possible somehow to tag Jeremy here so he can see this post? Otherwise I will try to find him:)

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We don't have to overthink it to start with! Yesterday I quickly mocked up the front page of how the revamped TW could look/work/feel like. It's not finished AT ALL, just making some ideas tangible:

[edit 28 April] TW revamp v0.02 

You are welcome to comment on top of prototype! And ask me if you want to edit!

Addressing:

• Visual layout (font, colors, white space, removing not first priority elements)
• Modeless / Contextual – it does not have to switch to fully different mode for editing. Editing and viewing happens at once. You interact with the smaller elements to get into the deeper editing "mode". For example if you interact with tags - you edit tags, if you interact with your writing cursor with the link in the text, you edit that link. As a result all the options are less overwhelming, it's more contextual.
• More advanced editing features and meta data is hidden one click away ⋮

We can run this as a branch experiment of TW revamp, have less features to start with, but then we can prioritise and reintroduced the features to match the simplicity.

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

Mat, it's not so important now if it makes to the official page, of course that would be great, but not the first priority. 😊

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

Moving forward I see two main issues that prevents simplicity:

1. The navigation when clicking links. Do you find it useful that tiddles are opening as a vertical stack? I find it kind of confusing, and not really helpful when you have increasingly large stack. I would like to explore alternative interactions:
   
• Swapping the tiddle with a new one, but keeping the breadcrumbs on top (if possible?) and giving < and > navigation, back and forward in time where you've been.
• Stacking tiddle when opening into tabs, so you can switch then by clicking or keyboard shortcut.
2. Editing mode. How can we make the editing more fluent with viewing. It distances you from just writing if you have to click edit and save everytime. You should be able to navigate text with keyboard or just click anywhere in text right away and start editing. Saving should happen automatically (to local storage). All the text-type formatting could be hidden, unless it's relevant for the selected word or sentence. This will reduce visual clutter. Check the simplicity of text editing in Typora! → Quick demo

[Birthe C]

Am I misunderstanding? A theme is discussed but to me it seems you want to change the workings of tiddlywiki.

If so remember there is such thing as backwards compatibility.

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

Birthe C good point to keep in mind, I definitely don't want to fork this project to a separate one! Community is the power.

That's why I am looking for somebody open-minded and who knows the TW code well, to think if we can achieve this through plugins and themes. 

So TW stays TW, or adopts some of the changes to the the main trunk, if majority agrees they are valid.

[Mohammad]

Edgaras,

 I agree with Jed! Most of new features cab be quickly tried as plugins/add-on/themes. 

 Mat is right, Jeremy can be of great help in what you like to know in such details.

By the way, I love your systematic approach and design brief you gave! I am sure other super user/developer will comment and help

Go ahead and please share your progress here with community! You will receive supports.

Best wishes

Mohammad

[Mohammad]

TW revamp v0.01

You are welcome to comment on top of prototype! And ask me if you want to edit!

To review and comment is it required to sign up to Figma? 

[Edgaras]

Mohammad, thank you!

Unfortunately, yes sign up is required, but it's free.

[David Gifford]

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 5:31:23 AM UTC-5, Edgaras wrote:

Moving forward I see two main issues that prevents simplicity:

1. The navigation when clicking links. Do you find it useful that tiddles are opening as a vertical stack? I find it kind of confusing, and not really helpful when you have increasingly large stack. I would like to explore alternative interactions:
   
• Swapping the tiddle with a new one, but keeping the breadcrumbs on top (if possible?)

I actually did this part a number of years ago. Or maybe it was for TW classic. Yes, yes, it was for classic. But I am not a coder or programmer, just a guy.

 

• and giving < and > navigation, back and forward in time where you've been.
• Stacking tiddle when opening into tabs, so you can switch then by clicking or keyboard shortcut. 

1. Editing mode. How can we make the editing more fluent with viewing. It distances you from just writing if you have to click edit and save everytime. You should be able to navigate text with keyboard or just click anywhere in text right away and start editing. Saving should happen automatically (to local storage). All the text-type formatting could be hidden, unless it's relevant for the selected word or sentence. This will reduce visual clutter. Check the simplicity of text editing in Typora! → Quick demo

Maybe a sticky toolbar for the various parts of the edittemplate. Click to open fields, click to open types, click to open preview, click to have editor toolbar buttons visible, etc

[Mohammad]

Edgaras,

Some thoughts:

Regarding the Typoral, I am sure you know Tiddlywiki Tiddler (https://tiddlywiki.com/prerelease/#Philosophy%20of%20Tiddlers) not only can be used to keep a piece of information (simple text +links or Markdown or wikitext), but a Tiddler also can act as small module keeping Tiddlywiki scripts (wikitext code, macros, call to widgets, complex transclusion, ...).

Many tiddlers may have both (simple wikitext, script wikitext) as an example see: https://kookma.github.io/TW-Shiraz/#Shiraz%20Plugin

So these are should be considered in your design!

--Mohammad

 

[Mohammad]

Thanks Edgaras. I created an account to view your design brief.

[Edgaras]

I actually did this part a number of years ago.

 

David please share if you still have it anywhere!

Maybe a sticky toolbar for the various parts of the edittemplate

Probably user should have a choice to toggle the toolbar. The level of editor complexity can be un revealed in these steps:

Plain editing, coding → Select word/sentence/paragraph to call a small toolkit pop-up → Toggle the toolbar → Reveal more advanced toolbar. So it always starts minimal, unless you choose not to.

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Mohammad yes, I am aware of that, but I am just scratching the surface of understanding how modules work and what they are capable of doing. To start with, it would be good to have a small priority list of crucial modules, and then introduce more along the way. That way we can make sure to control the consistency in interactions and styling.

Great, feel free to add as many comments as you want! Be critical! 😊 

[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]

Edgaras - this is amazing! I wish I was a developer or better versed in the inner workings of TW so I could help you, but I'll definitely give feedback on the design as you go. This is an exciting project.

I think ideally the end result should be easily installed in one click (the same way you download an empty TW), so I guess in TW's terminology that would make it an edition?

@David Gifford: we discussed this, you're a TW developer! :)

[Jeremy Ruston]

Hi Edgaras

Welcome, your offer is much appreciated. I liked the work in  TW revamp v0.01 and look forward to you exploring your vision further. Your thoughts on progressively revealing complexity are particularly interesting.

As others have pointed out, it’s likely to be less constraining to aim for an alternate theme rather than replacing the current default “Snow White”/“Vanilla” theme. TiddlyWiki themes are switchable so users can choose the theme that is best suited for a particular activity or audience, so it isn’t necessary to duplicate all of the functionality available in the default theme.

Having said that, the default theme can’t entirely go away for reasons of backwards compatibility, and so any ideas for improving it would be welcome. It’s a much less enticing brief because of the complexities involved in that need for backwards compatibility, but it could make a big impact.

1. The navigation when clicking links. Do you find it useful that tiddles are opening as a vertical stack? I find it kind of confusing, and not really helpful when you have increasingly large stack. I would like to explore alternative interactions:
   
• Swapping the tiddle with a new one, but keeping the breadcrumbs on top (if possible?) and giving < and > navigation, back and forward in time where you've been.
• Stacking tiddle when opening into tabs, so you can switch then by clicking or keyboard shortcut.

TiddlyWiki uses the term “storyview” to refer to the way that tiddlers are displayed and navigated. The default linear sequence of tiddlers is called “classic”. The core also ships with “zoomin” and “pop”. Zoomin displays a single tiddler at a time with a transition animation as links are clicked (see https://tiddlywiki.com/editions/introduction/ for an example). “Pop” is the same as “classic” but with a different transition animation.

Additional storyviews are available via plugins. For example, the official library includes a “stacked” storyview that displays tiddlers as a perspective stack of cards (see illustration below).

None of that is to invalidate your ideas, more to show that this is an area where there are a lot of possibilities that we have yet to explore, and that we have a framework that simplifies that exploration.

1. Editing mode. How can we make the editing more fluent with viewing. It distances you from just writing if you have to click edit and save everytime. You should be able to navigate text with keyboard or just click anywhere in text right away and start editing. Saving should happen automatically (to local storage). All the text-type formatting could be hidden, unless it's relevant for the selected word or sentence. This will reduce visual clutter. Check the simplicity of text editing in Typora!

The difference between editing and view mode is hard to hide away. In TiddlyWiki we have very dynamic markup (like transclusions) where there has to be a way to switch between editing/viewing the markup and its results.

In my work for clients I have developed a WYSIWYG editor for TiddlyWiki but it’s really only suitable for very limited use cases, where users are only typing regular text and formatting, and not using any dynamic markup. It’s based on Quill.js which seems to be popular but I find it very clunky to use, particularly making links. One of the goals of TiddlyWiki is to make linking be part of the punctuation of writing.

You are not the first to mention that saving should happen automatically to local storage. We’ve had much discussion about that here and it’s proved more controversial than I would have expected, but the fact is that local storage is treated like a purgeable cache by browsers, and cannot be trusted to retain valuable user data.

Anyhow, not to be pessimistic, I think there’s a lot we could do to improve the editing experience, but I don’t think there’s a whole lot of low hanging fruit without significant development within the core. The simple goal of being able to click on some text and start editing it right away is a good example: in TiddlyWiki, the text might be the result of a complex computed transclusion, and determining the right tiddler to edit could be non-trivial.

Many thanks again,

Best wishes

Jeremy

[Edgaras]

Anne-Laure no worries, it's all about dozens of small but important decisions that can path the way forward!

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Jeremy Ruston thanks for joining in! I am pleased to 'meet' you! What a tremendous work you've done together with the community. Thank you for making this happen!

You are making very valuable insights here:

all of the functionality available in the default theme

and 

 need for backwards compatibility

So as I understand there is a lot of functionality that is attached to a theme and is removed by switching a theme. I think this will be the hardest thing to understand, what should go to the separation as a theme and what should be a proposal for the core update. Maybe the best way is to discuss that in a concreteness along the way! For now, are there some key rules to keep in mind to ensure the backwards compatibility?

Zoomin displays a single tiddler at a time with a transition animation as links are clicked

I love the minimalism of how Zoomin storyview work! In this case it matches this zen vision the best😊 We should use it and tweak the animation a bit to be more subtile (maybe small fadeOut and fadeIt), so it does not get too repetitive when working all day. I can try different variations, but that's a detail. I think it's crucial to add breadcrumbs if possible or at least have < and > to navigate back and forward in the zoom. I will make a mockup for that.

I am also in favor of "stacked" storyview. I am wondering if it would be possible to reduce the information in the backdrop tiddles, so maybe they are just tabs, like we have in browsers, so we can quickly navigate between tiddles by clicking, keyboard shortcut or again <  and  > icons. I will make a mockup for this too.

So the navigation part is definitely minor and building things on top.

–– 

The difference between editing and view mode is hard to hide away.

I can imagine this are is very complex and difficult... As you and others have mentioned, it's not just a formatted text or markdown, it involves more complex dynamic elements like transclusions. 

I am completely with you on being able to switch between view and markup. What I want to challenge a bit, is what is considered as an editable area. Instead of treating the whole editable area as one editable element, we can divide it so you first select/click or navigate with cursor what you want to edit, and then get a contextual UI that is specific for that element. I suggest that the view and edit is always the same mode, but when you move to a word, element or module with your mouse or keyboard cursor, that part either switches to markup or relevant UI is revealed. That's how Typora is working with links for example. It's displayed as colored text, but switches to markup when you actually focus on the word. Also that's the way the do tables, you can create a table with markup, but when it's created, you can edit text, and while you are on the table element, you have a contextual simple UI/toolbar. I included screenshots below.

The largest part of the notes is still text and links, so keeping the view and edit as a same mode would benefit the workflow a lot.

It’s based on Quill.js which seems to be popular but I find it very clunky to use, particularly making links.

Yes, I am not fan how linking works in Quill.js, I think saw the linking was already very user friendly in TW or maybe it was TiddlyBlink. That's how it also works in RoamResearch. You just want to type [[ and get the dropdown with available links. Again, to be very minimalist I would do what Typora does, remove extra markup from links, when the cursor is not on the phrase. All the small details add up to complexity and cognitive load.

You are not the first to mention that saving should happen automatically to local storage.

Oh sorry, this is probably not what I meant. I just mean the saving could happen automatically without a need to click on the checkmark in the corner every time. I guess that's part of the discussion above of the whole editing flow.

 I don’t think there’s a whole lot of low hanging fruit without significant development within the core. 

That's what I was mostly afraid of, that many things might not be possible to "theme". But I am willing to continue explorations and provide in depth proposals, either for the theme or for the core. 😊 

The main vision for this "zen" iteration, is to really optimise usability and reduce the cognitive load of using tool, at the same time making it more appealing for broader masses. The power of the tool is already there. Few things like editing might need bigger changes, but most of things might be just a repackaging, while reusing as much as we can. But for a user that means a ton!

Let's collaborate!

[PMario]

Hi Edgaras,

Welcome to the club!

It's nice to see a designer's point of view! I think your designs should be like brainstorming about UI and UX improvements. It's cool to explore new possibilities without thinking about the consequences ;)

We developers and power-users should not think about, how of if we can implement "those visions". We shouldn't think about "design" backwards compatibility. The internals need to be compatible. They are ultra flexible already ... We will survive it!

I think it's about the "First Impression" for new users. Newbies want to type formatted text. ... Have a TOC ... Create simple ToDo's / shopping / <you name it> lists. ... They seem to like "backlinking" more visible ;) ...

I think, if those elements can be made simple and they have the possibility to "store", "reload" and make their stuff visible for others, they are "caught" already.

If the second step like dynamic lists need an "extended editor" and transclusions, macros, widgets need an "advanced" editor this doesn't matter anymore. We got them already.

-------------

Themes can look like:

 - Hugo static site theme Ghostwriter or

 - Wordpress Moments or    more TW like

 - Whitespace      which IMO has a very nice sidebar concept.

IMO we can do everything. ... Installing those 3 themes in ONE wiki and make them switchable will be a challenge. ... But doable, if it needs to be ...

There is one more thing, I wanted to show, but it doesn't work atm ;) ... Link will follow.

have fun!

mario

[PMario]

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 5:06:09 PM UTC+2, PMario wrote:

IMO we can do everything. ... Installing those 3 themes in ONE wiki and make them switchable will be a challenge. ... But doable, if it needs to be ...

edited last post.

-m

[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]

@Jeremy: this was such an interesting read, thank you!

Just want to jot down some thoughts:

• It's the fist time I see the introduction walkthrough, this is going to become my go-to when telling people about TiddlyWiki!
• Tangential - I was about to share the link on Twitter, but checked here first and it looks like there's no link preview. It would be good in a future version to have default link preview parameters so links always look good on social media. Even better if the user can tweak them easily.
• If there are so many limitations in working with the full version of TiddlyWiki, I wonder if Edgaras couldn't design a version that's purposefully restrictive. For instance, we're not able to edit on click because we're not sure what complex transclusion may be computed in the background—maybe that super simple Starter Edition of TiddlyWiki would not support such complex transclusions and focus on pure note-taking? May not be possible at all but just throwing it out there.
• Also, side note that I personally never use Storyview, and what Dave Gifford is creating to look at two tiddlers side-by-side feels much more natural to me, but again may be too much of a departure from the way TiddlyWiki works.

@Edgaras: I don't think the WYSIWYG part is that important to be honest. The kind of users that will be early adopters of this Starter Edition will probably understand markdown fairly quickly, especially if the onboarding is done correctly. (tens of thousands of non-technical people did with Roam)

I think what would be interesting from a design standpoint is figure out everything that should be removed for a Starter Edition, so people can get the best first impression, and then build upon this as they grow along their TiddlyWiki. Very excited to follow the progress on this!

@Mario: These themes are beautiful! Wow. Is there a public gallery with all TiddlyWiki themes?

[Peter Buyze]

The introduction walkthrough looks good, professional. It is important to keep that sidebar open and not make it closeable/foldable with the double chevron in the top right corner.

If it gets close accidentally a new user might not realise how to get it back. Moreover, it would useful to point out early on in the introduction that previous slides/tiddlers can be viewed again by clicking on them in the sidebar.

25 Apr 2020, 18:18 by alec...@gmail.com:

@Jeremy: this was such an interesting read, thank you!

Just want to jot down some thoughts:

• It's the fist time I see the introduction walkthrough, this is going to become my go-to when telling people about TiddlyWiki!
  
• Tangential - I was about to share the link on Twitter, but checked here first and it looks like there's no link preview. It would be good in a future version to have default link preview parameters so links always look good on social media. Even better if the user can tweak them easily.
  
• If there are so many limitations in working with the full version of TiddlyWiki, I wonder if Edgaras couldn't design a version that's purposefully restrictive. For instance, we're not able to edit on click because we're not sure what complex transclusion may be computed in the background—maybe that super simple Starter Edition of TiddlyWiki would not support such complex transclusions and focus on pure note-taking? May not be possible at all but just throwing it out there.
  
• Also, side note that I personally never use Storyview, and what Dave Gifford is creating to look at two tiddlers side-by-side feels much more natural to me, but again may be too much of a departure from the way TiddlyWiki works.
  

@Edgaras: I don't think the WYSIWYG part is that important to be honest. The kind of users that will be early adopters of this Starter Edition will probably understand markdown fairly quickly, especially if the onboarding is done correctly. (tens of thousands of non-technical people did with Roam)

I think what would be interesting from a design standpoint is figure out everything that should be removed for a Starter Edition, so people can get the best first impression, and then build upon this as they grow along their TiddlyWiki. Very excited to follow the progress on this!

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 4:06:09 PM UTC+1, PMario wrote:

Hi Edgaras,

Welcome to the club!

It's nice to see a designer's point of view! I think your designs should be like brainstorming about UI and UX improvements. It's cool to explore new possibilities without thinking about the consequences ;)

We developers and power-users should not think about, how of if we can implement "those visions". We shouldn't think about "design" backwards compatibility. The internals need to be compatible. They are ultra flexible already ... We will survive it!

I think it's about the "First Impression" for new users. Newbies want to type formatted text. ... Have a TOC ... Create simple ToDo's / shopping / <you name it> lists. ... They seem to like "backlinking" more visible ;) ...

I think, if those elements can be made simple and they have the possibility to "store", "reload" and make their stuff visible for others, they are "caught" already.

If the second step like dynamic lists need an "extended editor" and transclusions, macros, widgets need an "advanced" editor this doesn't matter anymore. We got them already.

-------------

Themes can look like:

 - Hugo static site theme Ghostwriter or

 - Wordpress Moments or    more TW like

 - Whitespace      which IMO has a very nice sidebar concept.

IMO we can do everything. ... Installing those 3 themes in ONE wiki and make them switchable will be a challenge. ... But doable, if it needs to be ...

There is one more thing, I wanted to show, but it doesn't work atm ;) ... Link will follow.

have fun!

mario

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[Mohammad]

To Mario post I would like o add the great themes by JD

- http://j.d.tiddlyspot.com/

- http://j.d.simplemobile.tiddlyspot.com/

- http://j.d.material.tiddlyspot.com/   (a lovely theme)

- http://j.d.search.tiddlyspot.com/  (two column like TiddlyBlink)

and Ton Gerner

-  http://tw5mobile.tiddlyspot.com/

and  some others ...

--Mohammad

[Mohammad]

@Anne-Laure

• It's the fist time I see the introduction walkthrough, this is going to become my go-to when telling people about TiddlyWiki

Have you seen the https://tiddlywiki.com/talkytalky/  presentation by Jeremy!

I think this is a great edition of Tiddlywiki to be used for brief introduction!

--Mohammad

[Mohammad]

Don't forget to click the full screen button on the top right! 

[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]

@Mohammad: these look amazing! We need to have a proper gallery of themes in the new tiddlywiki.com - it will really help to get people excited.

And talky talky looks amazing, but already a bit more technical :)

[Mohammad]

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 11:06:13 PM UTC+4:30, Anne-Laure Le Cunff wrote:

@Mohammad: these look amazing! We need to have a proper gallery of themes in the new tiddlywiki.com - it will really help to get people excited.

And talky talky looks amazing, but already a bit more technical :)

That is true! I just wanted to show the theme and page layout already existed for creating Intro

Best

Mohammad

[Anjar]

Wow @Jeremy, it is the first time I see the https://tiddlywiki.com/editions/introduction/; hide furniture is really nice; do you know if there is any versions compatible with newer tiddlywiki versions? Tried to use it for some poems with fade instead of zoom and a sticky footer; https://ewy.no/Joakim.html; but the page was quite heavy (> 7 mb!) (sorry for being offtopic)

EDIT: My fault; the introduction page was already up-to-date, the problem was that it wasn't enough to just drag over the theme, I had to drag over the shadow tiddler as well

Best,

Anders

[Edgaras]

Spot on PMario! The power users and the development community already learned the tool, so for them usability/UX does not matter that much. 

But it's an awesome tool, truly deserving broader audiences! Let's make it a bit more user friendly and straight forward for those every day users. 

And whoever else wants to have that zen experience of just focusing on writing!

Really nice themes! I think they are pointing to the right direction, a lot of elements to inspire from!

––––––

Anne-Laure yes! As I also wrote above the design would really focus on writing first, the other parts would be more hidden. 

And the same sequence is valid for how the theme could be developed:

Plain editing, markup → Select word/sentence/paragraph to call a small toolkit pop-up → Toggle the toolbar → Reveal more advanced toolbar.

So for first version of the theme it's really just plain editing and markup similar to Roam.

––––––

Peter Buyze thanks! I agree the sidebar should be there first, but probably people who want less distractions should be able to close it. And I really like the "Opened tiddlers" feature.

For now I am thinking it can stay in the sidebar, but I have some other ideas also how to display opened tiddlers. I just think it's a bit confusing just to have them all below and scroll through them.

Unless there is some kind of logic in it, like hierarchy or chronology.

[Edgaras]

I've been prototyping a little bit further last weekend. I took in consideration many things we've discussed above. The prototype is far from final, but I hope it gives the idea of the minimalist vision.

Here is a short screen recording of the prototype:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AvwP_mMhFh2r9Ldr4kxaWKISGEdLTvBp

And here is the prototype itself, if you wanna click around.

TW revamp v0.02

Some of the things addressed:

- Removed the box/frame and left text only to focus on writing experience.

- You can start writing just by clicking on text or TAB on keyboard

- Meta info like "fields" and "content type" is hidden one click away for simplicity.

- Simplier tag management.

- Added "mentions" for backlinks!

- Added a star icon for pinning/adding a tiddler to favorites.

- Added breadcrumb navigation on top

- Simplified sidebar with 4 tabs: opened tiddlers, pinned, recent and all.

- All the other things would be moved to settings (I still don't show that).

- Clicking on a link, you navigate to another note, but you can still access all opened notes in sidebar until you close them all.

Jeremy, Mohammad, Tony, Anne-Laure and others looking forward to your feedback!

I hope to receive more feedback so I can keep iterating. You can leave a contextual feedback in the prototype itself, but you will need to register on Figma, it's free.

Also, if you would be interested I can create an open collaboration file, so we can all sketch together! Would be that helpful? Otherwise I can keep iterating whenever I have time.

Cheers! 😊 

[David Gifford]

Yeah, I know, Anne, but I think of myself more as an En-veloper than a de-veloper - I take the working bits other people make and wrap it up into new editions.

[David Gifford]

Hi Edgaras

Here is a link to the TiddlyWiki classic I created with tabs as breadcrumbs https://giffmex.org/tw/tiddlydu3.html.

[Mat]

Edgaras, I'm following this with interest. The link you posted:

Here is a short screen recording of the prototype:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AvwP_mMhFh2r9Ldr4kxaWKISGEdLTvBp/view

...the file needs to be "shared with anyone who has the link". I can't access it as it is right now.

The additional notes and the demo confuses me a bit but I'll refrain until I've seen the recording.

<:-)

[Mohammad]

Hi Edgaras,

 Like Mat, I cannot access to recording on Google Drive!

 

  I see a very smooth Writing First App! Thank you!

  The backlinks my be a long list, has it a proper location under title?

  Is there any autocomplete for internal links or images?

  I see not editor toolbar, is it left to full editor?

  The search bar, breadcrumbs, add new tiddler looks good and in proper place!

   One point: For mobile users, does it reshape when opened on small touch screen?

 

A small comment: I may disagree with loose arrangement but it is a matter of taste and this is the second design (prototype)

--Mohammad

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 9:02:39 PM UTC+4:30, Edgaras wrote:

I've been prototyping a little bit further last weekend. I took in consideration many things we've discussed above. The prototype is far from final, but I hope it gives the idea of the minimalist vision.

Here is a short screen recording of the prototype:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AvwP_mMhFh2r9Ldr4kxaWKISGEdLTvBp/view

[Edgaras]

David Gifford Thank you! I was actually thinking something very similar! See the image attached. I tried it on the side stacking vertically, but the problem was titles are too long.

So I gave 2 letter initials for each note. I think I should try like you suggest putting notes on top.

By the way from your experience how many actual notes do you have open and it's still useful at a given time?

–––––

Mat, Mohammad woups, made the video file public now!

–––––

Mohammad clicking on the "Mentions" (backlinks) will give you a dropdown searchable menu, similar to other dropdown menus like for tags that TiddlyWiki already has.

Yes, links and images are very important to markup. Links with [[ ]] convention and images with markdown style to start with (

Editor bar is the next thing to work on, but we need to consider minimalist. We could have just typing and markdown to start with (and give a quick popup for cheatsheets). 

Or we could make so the toolbar is very minimal, you open it by selecting/highlighting a word/sentence.

Yes, mobile design is the very next thing to address next too! Thanks!

Could you give a bit more detail to the comment about "loose arrangement"? Are you refering to the notes not having a box? This one I am inspiring again from simple editors like Typora, Notion, Roam. It gives the feeling of freedom and minimalism. It might be a bit hard to get the feeling now only from image prototype. It could feel different when it's real.

I really like how in Notion you start with the blank slate (see the screenshot attached)

[Mat]

Edgaras - I like this a LOT but I'm a bit confused about some aspects. Here are questions and feedback:

- Removed the box/frame and left text only to focus on writing experience.

You're creating a new theme, right, not intended as the default theme. As a theme I LOVE this aspect. For default it is not a good idea because the user needs to understand the concept of tiddlers and the framing helps with this conceptualization.

 

- You can start writing just by clicking on text or TAB on keyboard

But... which mode is it we see in the demo/recording? Edit or View mode? How do I switch between these modes? 

 

- Meta info like "fields" and "content type" is hidden one click away for simplicity.

+1

 

- Simplier tag management.

It is very elegant but in what way is it simpler? Maybe it's just cut out for the simulation but there's no dropdown.

 

- Added "mentions" for backlinks!

(This is not seen in the demo, right?)

 

- Added a star icon for pinning/adding a tiddler to favorites.

You sure, considering the distraction free aspect? We currently have starring as separate plugin (hm, just realized I made one that I don't think I ever published: StarTid)

 

- Added breadcrumb navigation on top

(Not seen in demo, right?)

 

- Simplified sidebar with 4 tabs: opened tiddlers, pinned, recent and all.

That Recent list is really clean! Much nicer layout than current even if it might take up more vertical space. I also fully agree with the removal of the Tools tab... they are settings that belong in the Ctrlpanel, where they already are. I'm not sure about putting tab All there instead of More. How do you access the other subtabs of More?

 

- Clicking on a link, you navigate to another note, but you can still access all opened notes in sidebar until you close them all.

Like normal/current TW, right?

[Mohammad]

Hi Edgaras,

On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 10:21:47 PM UTC+4:30, Edgaras wrote:

David Gifford Thank you! I was actually thinking something very similar! See the image attached. I tried it on the side stacking vertically, but the problem was titles are too long.

So I gave 2 letter initials for each note. I think I should try like you suggest putting notes on top.

By the way from your experience how many actual notes do you have open and it's still useful at a given time?

–––––

Mat, Mohammad woups, made the video file public now!

Thank you I got the video and it was really useful to see how the prototype works! 

–––––

Mohammad clicking on the "Mentions" (backlinks) will give you a dropdown searchable menu, similar to other dropdown menus like for tags that TiddlyWiki already has.

Yes, links and images are very important to markup. Links with [[ ]] convention and images with markdown style to start with (

Wonderful! I may prefer wikitext instead of markdown :-)

Editor bar is the next thing to work on, but we need to consider minimalist. We could have just typing and markdown to start with (and give a quick popup for cheatsheets). 

Or we could make so the toolbar is very minimal, you open it by selecting/highlighting a word/sentence.

This is good! The cheatsheets as on demand popup will be very useful!

Yes, mobile design is the very next thing to address next too! Thanks!

Could you give a bit more detail to the comment about "loose arrangement"? Are you refering to the notes not having a box? This one I am inspiring again from simple editors like Typora, Notion, Roam. It gives the feeling of freedom and minimalism. It might be a bit hard to get the feeling now only from image prototype. It could feel different when it's real.

I mean the display density! When I see the video,  I realized the layout is great, so ignore this comment!

I really like how in Notion you start with the blank slate (see the screenshot attached)

Best wishes

Mohammad 

[Thomas Elmiger]

Hi Edgaras,

This is getting more and more interesting, thank you for the initiative. Just a few hints for inspiration from my side:

Some time ago I developed a concept focussing on reading and writing, you can find a demo here:
https://tid.li/tw5/test/concept.html

The only half-finished, never popular result is the Reader Mode plugin published on https://tid.li/tw5/plugins.html derived from that demo. Other revolutionary thoughts I would be happy to see reconsidered:

* Use titles in title fields as ID only and hide them (I used a simple counter to generate them)

** (I think it is not ideal, that they are present in the story, all on the same hierarchical level (H2) defined by a template.)

* Titles should be part of the text, it is easy to write them in wikitext: ! H1

* If all content is in the text field, search can focus on this one field.

To not use titles adds a need for rethinking links and tags (I made a plugin x-tags for that part). But I think that should be solvable.

I just started to work with the block editor in Wordpress and I have to say I like the writing experience. Hit the return key and get a new block, by default a paragraph, but that can be changed by hitting a shortcut or pressing a button to change the block type. TiddlyWiki in wikitext mode could be even faster: no need for block types as long as you type text. So: hit enter  (maybe shift+enter or another shortcut) and get a new tiddler.

You might also like to look at my Simple Search plugin: https://tid.li/tw5/plugins.html#%24%3A%2Fplugins%2Ftelmiger%2Fsimple-search – it shows how I think standard search should work.

And finally: I like to hide the sidebar too. I hide it on the right side to honour TW style and try to use space as good as possible in my themes combining dynamic story river width and (rather) fixed sidebar width).

All the best,

Thomas

[TonyM]

Edgaras,

I am very keen on many of your ideas, please proceed with this enthusiasm. I would however like to share some things I am aware of that may help inform you of existing options in tiddlywiki; I will gust dump them because to address them in detail would be too much.

• There are a number of radically different views available for tiddlywiki including one that looks like trello, Murri which can work even across multiple screens, JDs material plugin that includes buttons for use on mobile and more.
• Quite a few people do come to tiddlywiki looking for minimalist versions for specific purposes. The traditional method was to publish different editions, ideally that could also be constructed from a subset of plugins.
• It is interesting that so many people who have joined us of late, Due to Anne/Product Hunt and perhaps even home isolation for Covid-19 happen to be interested in static sites. This is an importiant direction but to me this is actually only one of many. New users may not yet had a chance to drink the whole bottle of tiddlywiki coolaid.

Let me share with you may primary use of tiddlywiki, although I have many planned, this is something no designer can address however smart the layout or theme. I am sure many others also do this.

This is to show how you may not yet have imagined TiddlyWiki yet.

• I had both in tiddlywiki classic and now in TW5 a personally wiki I share with no one, will never publish.
• It is a project manager, 
• To do list and knowledge repository. It has personal records, ideas and projects. It evolves with my needs 
• It has planning and time frame handling, menus, custom link sets.
• It helps me build and record work flows and algorithms, instructions and references. 

Another key wiki rins on Windows TiddlyDesktop and it interacts with my computer, folders, files links and supports automation, network troubleshooting and more.

this is not at all to diminish your approach, but perhaps even to broaden the possibilities further.

 

You are already mentioning bunch of great points:

• TiddlyWiki can already do or be many things

• This presents a dilemma, because how do you set a basic standard look for a chameleon? 

This is why I am so excited about, it's super powerful, but somehow it seems a bit overwhelming, with all the features shouting for the importance. The tool could be as blank as it can be, while displaying first possible actions, and then introducing complexity as you engage within a context. 

My above points try and express this in more detail, but this is the reason your Ideas should be able to be implemented on top of tiddlywiki. The truth is we need to both target the specific and remain thoughtful of the global lets we be overwhelmed with complexity. Jeremy has navigated a treacherous course to maintain backwards compatibility and continue to capture the evolving power. One result is however there are plenty of mature ways to integrate new ideas, such as your. 

 

• TiddlyWiki  is the answer to so many questions, but which question are you trying to answer?

• There are already innovative tiddlywiki layouts like a trello look alike, the Murri plugin and much more

As I see it, TW should be as it is – super powerful personal notebook, with a possibility to quickly and simply publish static website, as if possible (don't know much about it) a collaborative writing tool. Some of the things that I see are missing:

Not all these things are missing, you have just not found them yet, perhaps they can be better and more readily available, but we value new perspectives so maintain your passion and expectations.

 

I've seen some of TW themes, but it feels more like as a surface redesign, but underlying issues are there. Yes, some corrections on usability and some nice features like sidebar are there, but many things like fonts, icons, animations, white space feels odd, as most importantly, not much is improved in the usability of editing. Also, obviously I haven't seen enough! Please share if something minimal exist already.

 I have a vision for such a solution I would be happy to share if you want to consider taking it on. 

I would love to hear your vision if you are willing to share! Both on the strategy and design, let's collaborate. We can discuss here + draft a more structured google docs + prioritize tasks on Trello + share the actual design vision and comment on Figma prototype.

You give me a link or start a thread here or in my personal group https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/tiddlywiki-by-psat I will start a forum thread where I edit my lead post see "Dynamic Layout concept development" (to be started)

 

One way I would like to see the recent discussions evolve is a bit like how developers may use wordpress as the back end and write their own front end.

Could you explain a bit more what do you mean here?

Many wordpress developer used to install wordpress for its user post, page handling and its dashboard back end, however they would actually code their own front end. Thus we see websites all over the world many do not know are actually wordpress. I am not suggesting something so extreme, I am suggesting with different themes and page structure tiddlywiki can and does do the same, Your ideas are a perfect case in point. There are benefits to many TiddlyWikis  underlying mechanisms that are not obvious until you have spent sometime with it. The thing is a good design on top of tiddlywiki will benefit from the many advantages within tiddlywiki.

When it comes to static site generation, there are great mechanisms in tiddlywiki to do this already as no doubt people see, but to make it really powerful we need to improve and support the workflow and templates used to do this. 

I really want to dig deeper into the current state of art of TW's static site generation. It must be as simple as in any other SSG, but even simplier! I like what Publii is doing. You just write you site visually and then publish to GitHub Pages or SFTP as a static site with one click (+ first time simple settup).

As I said previously, lets keep developing this; but it is but one path we can take, and I hope it can continue to leverage prior art within tiddlywiki.

 

Tiddlywiki as a platform, Software Development Kit, Personal Productivity tool, site generator, database.... interface design ... is almost infinite. 

I would like to see a responsive theme that contains elements that come into use only if given content and obeys a set of rules that allows almost any design structure, with default that result in what we currently see, but a small set of changes transforms it.

That's how I see it too! Simple, responsive, contextual, prioritised. There should no unnecessary switching "modes", viewing and editing should feel as one coherent flow. And all the power of the tool can come into the right place, but it should to be prioritised.

I agree, many need what you say here, but I do want to be able to switch modes - say from authorship with tools, to publish site, to trello board and mobile view. Ideally on the same wiki if I choose to.

We do need this to popularise tiddlywiki further, but we should be careful not to dumb down the underlying system (Not saying you are), we need more designer approachs.

Yours Sincerely

Tony

 

[Peter Buyze]

Regarding the navigation, I installed Ton Gerner's tiddlerbar plug-in because of the same problem you describe. I find the tiddlerbar solved it. When you have many tids open the bar just overflows into an extra line of tabs. 

29 Apr 2020, 10:29 by edgar...@gmail.com:

Thank you for in the depth feedback peeps! This really helps to consider more aspects and improve the design.

––––––––––

For default it is not a good idea because the user needs to understand the concept of tiddlers and the framing helps with this conceptualization.

Mat is see what you mean now! I agree with you and maybe even in this theme, tiddlers should stay modular, and have the story view, it has many advantages! There are few things that bothers me in the story view and I want to address those. For example, I loose track of navigation when I jump from one to another tiddler. Maybe I need arrows <   > so I can quickly navigate from where I've been before and combine with breadcrumbs. I already have that in the prototype and I can try to prototype 

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[Anne-Laure Le Cunff]

Hi Edgaras,

This demo is amazing! A couple of thoughts:

• Love the clean design, I find it both relaxing and inviting and could see myself write more with TW with such an interface.
• Yay for proper markdown integration out of the box! Not a question for you, but more with the developer you will partner with on this, but would it be possible to get both markdown as found in this plugin and autocomplete for internal links as found in TiddlyBlink? They currently don't work together.
• Maybe move the mentions at the bottom of the writing or somewhere else? I think the dropdown menu at the top may make them feel like a second thought. I think at the bottom of the writing area with area with a little expand/collapse icon may be an interesting option to explore (similar to what Roam did).
• Even though I agree (as discussed previously) we should not make the settings/tools as central as it currently is in the default TW theme, I don't think there is any link to it at all right now? People will still need access to their settings.

Overall this looks amazing and I'm super excited to follow your progress! Thanks so much for your work on this.

On Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 8:32:26 AM UTC+1, Peter Buyze wrote:

Regarding the navigation, I installed Ton Gerner's tiddlerbar plug-in because of the same problem you describe. I find the tiddlerbar solved it. When you have many tids open the bar just overflows into an extra line of tabs. 

29 Apr 2020, 10:29 by edgar...@gmail.com:

Thank you for in the depth feedback peeps! This really helps to consider more aspects and improve the design.

––––––––––

For default it is not a good idea because the user needs to understand the concept of tiddlers and the framing helps with this conceptualization.

Mat is see what you mean now! I agree with you and maybe even in this theme, tiddlers should stay modular, and have the story view, it has many advantages! There are few things that bothers me in the story view and I want to address those. For example, I loose track of navigation when I jump from one to another tiddler. Maybe I need arrows <   > so I can quickly navigate from where I've been before and combine with breadcrumbs. I already have that in the prototype and I can try to prototype 

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[Edgaras]

Thank you for in the depth feedback peeps! This really helps to consider more aspects and improve the design.

––––––––––

For default it is not a good idea because the user needs to understand the concept of tiddlers and the framing helps with this conceptualization.

Mat is see what you mean now! I agree with you and maybe even in this theme, tiddlers should stay modular, and have the story view, it has many advantages! There are few things that bothers me in the story view and I want to address those. For example, I loose track of navigation when I jump from one to another tiddler. Maybe I need arrows <   > so I can quickly navigate from where I've been before and combine with breadcrumbs. I already have that in the prototype. Few other features that could help, there could be ☑️ two icons that switches the view: one is showing the whole opened tiddlers storyview river, another one – focused on the latest open tiddle. In that way you can focus on writing in one, but still switch to another view to read other tiddles.

But... which mode is it we see in the demo/recording? Edit or View mode? How do I switch between these modes? 

That's what I am trying to challenge a bit. Viewing and editing could be the same mode. When we tab or click we instantly switch between different fields to edit in a tiddle. The save happens right when you switch.

It is very elegant but in what way is it simpler?

You are right about tags, it's almost exactly how it is now, just cleaned up a bit. And yes I think ☑️ the dropdown is also needed.

(This is not seen in the demo, right?)

In the demo I only show that the mentions field is always visible on tiddler and says e.g. "21 Mentions". When you click this label you will ☑️ get a searchable dropdown. I did not yet show that in prototype.

(Not seen in demo, right?)

Yes, you can actually see breadcrubs and <   > arrows to navigate the history of viewing in the prototype. it's the top line.

I'm not sure about putting tab All there instead of More. How do you access the other subtabs of More?

This is very good point I have to ☑️ reconsider the More tab. Would you say you want all subtabs from More tab or only some of them?

Like normal/current TW, right?

Yes, but at this prototype I am considering open another note in place for simplicity, instead of opening not in the story-view and scroll down to it. But as I wrote above, after your comment I will consider a switch mode icon, so you can switch between last opened tiddler and the scroll river view.

––––––––––––

Mohammad

Wonderful! I may prefer wikitext instead of markdown :-)

Yes, wikitext is much more powerful, I just wish it was extending (on including) the markdown. It's because many people use markdown, so it's easy to copy paste from/to other software.

So, ideally I would like to write in wikitext, but be able to write also markdown at the same time. For example I prefer "# Headline" than "! Headline" but it could work with both?

Thank you for your comments!

–––––––––––-

Thomas this is awesome! I like a lot of ideas in your concept, the simplicity for reading and different ways to save note based on the context!

I have to note this down and take a closer look at all you features from the plugin!

You gave me a lot of thought about the title (I did not actually know that it was unique ID). I think it's a great feature of TW, every concept/note should be unique, otherwise you refer to another note.

I think in my explored concept I like to have clear titles as identification, but of course if you want to write one tiddler and put other tiddles as components (is that possible in TW?) the titles should be smaller visually.

But it's okay that the embeded tiddles would have H1 or H2, as much as I know in HTML5 you can semantically use H1 again, if it's in a sub context.

Hit the return key and get a new block, by default a paragraph, but that can be changed by hitting a shortcut or pressing a button to change the block type. 

This is exactly what I would like to see in TW when editing a tiddler! In many modern note apps you can do that. For example in Notion, also ☑️ every paragraph is a block, and the block type can be always changed (paragraph, headline, code, embed, quote, list etc.). I have to prototype that. It would be also cool to have a simple and distinct way to refer a block from one tiddler to another (is that possible now???)

I love your search plugin feature! It's amazing, I think that's how it should work also! It's intuitive, similar how Apple "Spotlight Search" work. ☑️ I would love to borrow you plugin:)

I also like you fixed sidebar width. It feels nice and save space.

Thanks for the open minded ideas! I will definitely look more into them!

––––––––––––––-

Tony Thank you for your time to feedback, kind comments and challenging thoughts! This is helpful.

I think I am relizing more and more that definitely I am not redesigning the whole TiddlyWiki, because as you mentioned, it's a multipurpose powerful and flexible machine.

It's also more less a framework, a toolkit, a platform (with all the plugins). Seeing this (I am still learning all the potential, super exciting) I really want to contribute to creating a theme for two purposes.

First, a minimal, distraction free, powerfully modular, linked/back-linked note taking experience. Something that feels very cool and could compete with other commercial tools on the market. 

Like Notion, RoamResearch, Coda, SuperNotes, Dropbox Paper etc. etc. I would be great to offer a similar experience to TW users, especially not very technical ones.

Second, there is a huge no-code movement, also increasing popularity of Static Site Generators and simple CMS systems. TW could really serve the market here.

I would like to use TW as a simple visual CMS system to quickly and easily publish personal websites/blogs. Again I want to address non-technical people here, who just needs a minimal tool, with simple workflow, to achieve the outcome they want - great looking public website that can match the result of any other complex CMS system out there.

There are many cool Static Site Builders, but most of them run in the Terminal and does not offer visual CMS (https://getpublii.com does, very nice, but themes and plugins are super limited, and it's only for Mac)

So yeah overall with this vision I want to achieve a minimalistic personal management system for eveeryone with a possibility to simply build and publish websites.

I agree with you that TW should of course stay as it is – a powerful system to build your own tools, and not designer can ever serve all those personal needs. YET, there are a lot of people who are not techical enough and do not want to spend time learning and building their own tools. There are certain patterns that many people would benefit from, and I want to serve that need, including for myself. On top of that everybody can extend their system at any time still.

This is to show how you may not yet have imagined TiddlyWiki yet.

To be honest, most of these things I can do without spending much time in other commercial modern tools like Notion, Coda etc. I particularly like Notion, because it has just enough features, it's modular enough, soon their will introduce API, so you will be able to combine with other tools. In the future, with no-code movement (like Zapier) we will see more and more ways to integrate tools, and it will become simplier to build your own workflows.

Another key wiki rins on Windows TiddlyDesktop and it interacts with my computer, folders, files links and supports automation, network troubleshooting and more.

WHAAAT!? Is that possible? Amazing, this is what's missing in many commercial tools, from Notion for example you cannot access you own computer files, and that's a huge bummer.

I would love TW to be my main interface for everything, my personal knowledge management system, file system manager, website publisher.... Seem like it possibly can be.

But I believe we really need to make this all non-tech user friendly... If you look at Anytype - they are in the process of building this revolutionary personal digital system, that is flexible and modular, it's self hosted and can access your personal file. It has P2P communication system so everything can be privately collaborated on. The main difference is – the interface is much more user friendly than TW, it addresses all key needs of the human in the digital knowledge work age. Not everyone wants/can to hack their way in to this age. There are people who have other jobs to do. Just like not everyone wants to design and build their own house and interior, but they still want to have an affordable, good quality, usable, well functioning, beautiful house.

this is not at all to diminish your approach, but perhaps even to broaden the possibilities further.

But I see why you mentioning all these important aspects! I think those are all important to talk through and I can see fundamentally we are on the same page!

You are mentioning very important aspect that I respect very much – always keep it backward compatible. Therefore, I am glad for all these comments, together bit by bit we will figure out what core features and quality plugins can support this vision.

You give me a link or start a thread here or in my personal group

It seems that I don't have an access to your group. Do you think it would be better to move conversation there? I would like to keep this as a main thread for now, so ideas do not get dispersed all over. But I will make sure to edit my original post on this tread, so it's always updated with the latest prototype file, videos, maybe google docs for the documentation and next tasks, everybody will be welcome to collaborate (I would love to make this collaboration on TW, but I am not aware of managed collaboration features).

I am not suggesting something so extreme, I am suggesting with different themes and page structure tiddlywiki can and does do the same

The thing is a good design on top of tiddlywiki will benefit from the many advantages within tiddlywiki. 

This is amazing Tony. This would be awesome! I completely agree, while it should be simple to use tool to start with, but through design, it should be also simple to build your own "themes/templates/reusable block".  This might quickly become very complex to implement. But untimely it would be awesome to build your own "views" simply drag and dropping and visual editing, like Webflow does. Notion I think achieved this quite well. While you can't do fully custom front-end, many non-tech people are able to customise it enough and serve it as a public website. It has a quite powerful data management system (like databases) and different view formats - table, kanban, gallery, list, calendar, gantt in the future. And all of those can be further customized a bit.

I agree, many need what you say here, but I do want to be able to switch modes

I agree with your concerns, and yes I agree fully, that the theme should not prevent extensibility. I think you shoud be able to extend the theme as you can extend the original TW with plugins and themes. Of course some things might be conflicting with the visual style, but then it becomes the concern of that person, or the theme can be further designed to match the popular plugins, extensions. 

☑️ IDEALLY I would like to propose a modular/flexible design system on Figma, maybe even CSS (fonts, colors, spacings, icons, atomic building blocks for anyone who wants to extend the theme in the same style. (we can always improve and upgrade this visual system). Just like Apple has their UI guidelines and Google has the Material Design and many other big organisation or communities have customisable design systems, for everyone who wants to build apps within a platform.

Thank you Tony for the super valuable, candid and much needed feedback and important directions to consider!

–––––––––––––

Peter Buyze I think it's a very much needed plugin. I could not find the plugin (could you drop a link here?), but I think the breadcrumbs should ONLY show the interactive path to the tiddler in focus. 

That's different from just showing all opened tabs, because we have that already in the sidebar.

As I mentioned, <  and > arrows in addition to breadcrumbs would be great for quickly navigating back and forward to what's been opened last.

–––––––––––––

Anne-Laure 

Yay for proper markdown integration out of the box!

Yes! This is a problem I replied to Mohammad above. If possible when writing in wikitext, I would like to still be able to write markdown. For example in wiki text you write "! Headline" and markdown "# Headline". I am wondering why markdown could not be "plugged in" into wikitext? Would there be conflicts between those two markups? Just like when you write CSS when using SCSS or still write JavaScript when writing TypeScript.

Maybe move the mentions at the bottom of the writing or somewhere else? I think the dropdown menu at the top may make them feel like a second thought.

Good idea, I've tried on the bottom actually, but it did not look neat, ☑️ but I will try again! I think it can work. I might still be helpful to have "X Mentions" and drop down on the top, if the tiddler you are writing is very long and you don't want to scroll all the way down. Alternatively, I should try maybe ☑️ a sticky simple toolbar, so you can always have most important tiddle actions at hand, even if you scroll down the long one. (☑️ are just for me to remember hahha. With TW this would work neatly, adding quickly stuff to your to-do list ;) )

settings

Yeah I will include the ☑️ link to setting in the next iteration ;)

Thank you for the support Anne-Laure! All big and small comments are very useful and much needed! Every bit of information has it's own place in the system ("Hierarchy is the architecture of complexity". ~ Herb Simon)

[TonyM]

Edgaras

I am so glad you are inspired. Your contribution will be appreciated. I think We are in furious agreement and share your visions.

Many of your ideas have had some consideration over recent years here and its good to see that you have insight into these issues even although you are new to tiddlywiki. The truth is tiddlywiki as at the leading edge of personal software in my view, if not yet as accessible to the general public as we wish. Tiddlywiki also has a history of absorbing and reinventing meaningful advances.

Many of us are skilled in diverse areas and expect very different things. From academics and authors to hackers and to Do list users.

Jeremy is the creator and has maintained some strict principals that have got us so far with each advance expanding possibilities exponentially. There are conceptual leaps needed for many to come to terms with tiddlywiki, but someone with your broad insight will find much can be plugged in to the platform. In some ways it is self documented, an important principal, but this sometimes, results less general (although not dummed down) documentation.

the best way is to learn its mechanisiums and build a plugin or edition that demonstrates new solutions. If there is a gap that can be addressed in the core tell us about it, but more often than not someone will have a method or a workaround.

It has being a long standing tradition to encourage people to search for solutions already there, but we ask do not hesitate to ask questions. I am often delighted at the number of different and elegant solutions that come forward.

This is my experienced viewpoint but others may have quite different view points.

I will restate, being able to generate sites is only one opportunity, although it has inspired many new members recently.

I believe its key advantage is how any change can be immediately reflected throughout the whole wiki extremely efficently. This is more powerful than most people recognise.

Also despite the server options, the single file wiki is also an importiant principal and again results in massive advantages. Although it is a rule that can be broken, in a particular instance it will always remain a key principal.

Count on my support, I hope my words help yourself and others gain insight to the current culture here including our openness to new ideas and cultural evolution.

Regards
Tony

[Edgaras]

Tony yes I think we do and we will get even more aligned in time!

I truly respect all work, considerations, the whole iterative and collaborative process of developing TW as a community! And I respect the strict enough principles, that are open minded, but also preventing everything from scattering, and actually being able to manage this complexity! It's truly amazing and again I might not know all things that's been considered or that exist already.

When I am prototyping I am just trying my best to listen for all of you and combine with the way I see software design and visualise the ideas, so they can be reflected upon and iterated again. This is the process of exploration and creativity for the benefit of possible improvements. By no means I am trying to invent something new, in fact I believe innovation is about structuring the smallest existing pieces into something that improves something. Therefore, I hope essentially the most things of this new theme/plugin will be reused from what exist. I also hope when the prototype and the design system develops enough, we will have some collaboratively well thought through design decisions made, I hope there will be some developers and TW experts who will want to make this real and coded. I would also eventually attempt to do it on my own, but I just expect it would take me 20x times longer and harder to do so... But I am a bit of coder myself and I can definitely understand how things work and tweak things.

As a designer I am primarily an advocate for the user/human experience and enabling people to achieve outcomes they strive for with minimum effort. Judging from the global adoption of TW (knowing the potential), from the comments of many of us, my personal experiences as a new user and professional expertise in software design – I let myself to make an educated guess – some people groups and their needs are still underserved. 

The design theory also tells – people have Liquid Expectations that influence their experience and adoption of any tool/service. Liquid Expectations means our ever changing perceptions of things, and our tendency to draw parallels between things. In terms of the interfaces, that means, if people perceive Google as an easy to use search engine, Netflix as a new way to get a movie in a second on demand or Uber/Lyft is the way to order a taxi conveniently – they will expect that in every next service of a similar category. 

Same with information management systems/tools. If people are used to certain way of working, they will expect that also from TiddlyWiki, even if it might be much more powerful and superior to many systems out there. Besides that, there are some general human-computer interface principles that comes from studies in human cognition. Certain mental and physical abilities and tendencies like a cognitive load, mental models, haptics, aesthetics, visual perception (Gestalt Laws), eye physical vision etc. influences the way we use technology. Also it depends on a context...

Just a small example, yesterday I bought Quine 2 app to use TW on my iPhone. I was in bed taking notes. And it was so difficult to use TW on my phone. The text sizes were small in most place it hurt my eyes, it was hard to tap on many elements, everything was constantly scrolling I kept loosing track where I am... Yet, being kind of geeky and loving TW I kept going. I think not everyone can ignore the experience and depend directly on the power of the tool. 

Again, with my input want to advocate for the human experience of using the tool that can support every person in this digital knowledge work and life age.

I hope we can all work this out, continuing being open minded, keep developing the legendary TW and make it even more approachable for broader audiences outside tech world!;) I hope one day soon even my dad will use TW to manage his work and life digitally ;D 

Cheers,

Edgaras

[TonyM]

Edgaras,

Lovely to have you in the community with these ideas and approach.

We have a number of times raised the issue of "cognitive load" in wikitext, widgets and macros as we try and improve it and yes this is critical for new users.

I look forward to your help with Human centred approach to support the systems thinking and other approaches here.

Unfortunatly you liquid Expectations link says "Error establishing a database connection" but you describe it well.

Regards

Tony

[TonyM]

Edgaras,

Check out the tool in this thread. https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/tiddlywiki/wTcmMSy-zHc

I think you may be able to use it.

Regards

Tony

On Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 11:59:04 PM UTC+10, Edgaras wrote:

[Miha Lunar]

Hi Edgaras and others! This is a great initiative!

I really like these ideas and the minimalistic mockups look really nice. Before finding TW I was using Notion for a while and I think it has a really neat UX that's complex under the hood, but presented nicely.

Re: mixing wikitext and Markdown: They are fundamentally incompatible in some areas, e.g. # in MD means header, while in WT it's an ordered list item. Initially I also wanted to just use Markdown, but nowadays I feel like wikitext might actually be "the better Markdown". That's bad because then it's harder to champion for the more mainstream Markdown :)

Re: modeless editing: I feel like this is a really powerful concept that brought text and layout editing to the masses. At the same time, I believe having an editable readable text "source" for a document is powerful in terms of:
• reproducibility - you can copy paste a section of the source to someone and they will get the same thing barring side effects
• consistency - all the state is visible, so it's harder to get into a weird state where some hidden format or layout is affecting your writing unintentionally
• flexibility - since code is usually text too, you can essentially have a way more flexible system if you can also write "code" within text (wikitext has this with transclusions, etc., LaTeX too)

That said, as you mentioned, looking at / parsing all this additional code all the time can be taxing, as as much as we want them to be, human brains aren't really great computer grammar parsers :)

This brings me to what you and others mentioned and what I believe Notion got really right. The concept of logical blocks a page / note consists of. This can be a paragraph, a link, an image, a table, etc. In Notion it's natural to add these, you type a / and up pops a small non-intrusive command search popup, where you just search for a thing to add.

These quick-add slash commands would be essential when it comes to the unified view / edit flow imo. On top of that add drag and drop reordering logic and you're 80% there.

So how do you reconcile having source editing and Notion-like blocks? I would start by keeping the source and having a special type of a UI view that is smart enough to modify the source directly through UI actions like typing in the middle of some text, adding a new block (read: header, image, tiddler link, transclusion, anything that's a toolbar button right now) with a slash command, or reordering some blocks in the tiddler (e.g. dragging a header a few paragraphs higher would move it in source text a few lines up).

Now for a little nerd talk. Jeremy, I hope you're listening ☺

Technically, this would have to be done carefully as to not corrupt or change the source in any unexpected way. The complexity depends a little on how wikitext is parsed currently. If it's the standard lexer-parser setup where you get an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) somewhere in the middle before you convert it into HTML it would already help a lot.

One interesting feature that many parsers usually don't care about is that we would need is for the AST to be losslessly reversible back into wikitext (including whitespace, comments, everything). That way we would be able to operate on the source in a safe and structured manner without losing any extra stuff in it.

To be able to visually link the blocks back to their source text, we would need to track all the up-to-date character ranges for the parsed tokens / AST leaves and carry their ids up to the UI / HTML elements used to display them. Then when you e.g. have a list of images and you drag an image, the UI knows of the hierarchy behind the display (from the AST) and at the same time knows how to modify the source text (by the character ranges in each AST element) to produce the desired modified output.

Nerd mode off.

Clearly you won't have a UI that allows you to edit every single wikitext feature including transclusions, macros, etc. on day one. But I see great value in having even just bold, italic, headers and links as an MVP and blackboxing everything that is not supported. Since the source wikitext would remain, you could always switch to the source view for more advanced stuff.

Now if we entertain this modeless direct editing experience some more, I can imagine all the blackboxed blocks turning into inline source code editors. Transclusions could provide a way for editing the source tiddler directly by showing a nested UI in the context of the transcluded tiddler with some border or whatever showing up to tell you which one it is.

I'm not saying it would be easy, but it's definitely achievable, especially if you limit the scope of what to do initially. :)

Welp, I spent too much time writing this brain dump, so I hope it gave some ideas to someone at least. :)

Best,
Miha

[TonyM]

Miha

What comes to mind reading your reply, as a long time user of tiddlywiki, I do not experience the issues of mixed wikitext and code, in some ways I already have a "blocks" based solution. 

I have no problem transfering text from one wiki to another or a seperate system. This is all with vanila tiddlywiki, and it is only a matter of my "practices", nothing else.

To achieve what you and others are suggesting can rest on this prior work already built in to achieve the results faster.

I will state them succinctly and you can ask for more info as needed.

• I tend to keep Real text in standard tiddlers with all code in $:/systemTiddlers, macros or view templates use these.
• I tend to use a view template to display, often conditionally, the content of any standard tiddler, this view template will invoke macros etc... as needed to display the fields and other value. ie they are not placed in the wiki text except in limited circumstances.
• Many of my tiddler have no text field, this is simply retained for additional notes, all the results come from how the tiddler is tagged or fields it contains, tags are used to get information from elsewhere in the wiki.
• Tiddlers are my blocks, and the view template assembles them
• Given this method I can introduce drag and drop reordering if an when desired.
• I will use the occasional class or macros in my wikitext but they are usually meaningful to the reader and do not distract from the notes.
• If transferring content from a TiddlyWiki to another location I do not copy the wikitex,t they can't process, I use the following methods
• Copy and paste the rendered output
• Print to a text file
• Print to a PDF
• Copy the resulting html
• sometimes paste the copied html as plain text
• Generate csv formatted text I copy and paste

In the editor there is a preview mechanism, additional preview formats can be used out of the box or even developed. I use the HTML one to extract HTML snipits for use elsewhere, For example we could have a parser that provided a "preview" that instead of presenting html, presented raw markdown. If you can see something in preview its trival to provide copy to clipboard, export or even drag and drop to move content in another format.

I am not sure but when you refer to Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)  I think it may already exist. Its the Widget Tree, Install the plugin "Tools for exploring the internals of TiddlyWiki", and edit a complex tiddler, select the preview and the Widget Tree Option.

An important point with tiddlywiki is it has a sophisticated set of mechanisms that allow changes to be reflected through out your wiki almost instantainiously, this is also very efficient because it knows how to refresh only what it must refresh, in part by acting only on what is visible.

A lot can be built on top of tiddlywiki without the deeper knowledge, however if looking to revolutionary changes you will often discover the underlying mechanisms already exist. The only cost being understanding and making use of these powerful methods. For example the introduction of javascript needs to follow the rule that maintain this instantaniouse update model.

Regards

Tony

[Miha Lunar]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for those details!

It helps to see how some of my points relate to the inner workings already. Note that I was mostly talking in the general sense for the concepts above, so many of the things I mentioned could already exist in some form.

I see your point on tiddlers usually being _the_ content and not the ones containing it via view templates and tag lists. I have this to some degree as well. However for new users, I think there's a big gap between "oh I can enter text and make it bold and save it, that's cool" and "I am the master of tag based filtered list macros" :D

What the above does point towards is that it would be better if the solution was extensible in some way, to support all the custom use cases that arise. Now all this could be at first is just a generic view template that you can install and that adds this functionality to all tiddlers by default.

I don't know how useful it would be for experienced users, but for new users I think it would help ease them into the syntax and help with writing text-based tiddlers.

I want to emphasize here that this would just be a potentially easier way to edit simple notes, it should of course integrate with all the existing TW functionality - meaning editing text would keep being reactive. The "blocks" I was referring to was a shorthand for parts of a note - this might have a big (full?) overlap with Widgets, so if it does, just replace block with Widget in my previous email ;)

Best,
Miha

[Edgaras]

Hello Miha, thanks for joining the discussion here!

Miha and Tony, let me reply to you a bit later ;) 

For now I wanted to share with you a quick prototype in vanilla JS I put up today with my quote weak coding skills... But it shows the basic idea of block/module based editor (inspired from Notion ;) )

Instead of having all text in one textarea I divided every element (headline, paragraph into seperate textareas that can have a seperate ID). Every block can be later adjusted and every block can have it's own settings:

Video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/189iDckDDFFl274xU44MxnbRhI9Cq8gp1/view?usp=sharing

Source code:

https://codepen.io/edgarascom/pen/XWmaLwo

[TonyM]

Unfortunately I cant view the video (yet)

Tony

[Mohammad]

Edgaras,

 I think the writing now is quite straight forward! I watched the video! You need a real prototype to let every user now give a try and send feed back on this first part!

--Mohammad

[Edgaras]

Tony weird you can't access videos! I made them all public!

Mohammad I think it's quite far from making the prototype available as a real thing for the users! I am still looking for anyone who would like to join and bit by bit make this as a real thing in TW! Do you have ideas how to make this coding more collaborative? Should I publish this on Github? I am coding, but I am more designer than a developer, so every small feature for me takes 20x time to do :D I would rather spend time where I am efficient – designing and prototyping!

[Mohammad]

Hi Edgaras,

 I think a github repo may be the good option to go! I am not sure if your development requires coding in JS or not! but as far as wikitext required I think people in the group can help!

 

--Mohammad

[Riz]

Status?

[Edgaras Benediktavicus]

Riz I put this project on pause. I wanted mainly to address the editor experience, but seems like it's a huge job to do. The learning curve of TiddlyWiki is too big for me for now. I might come back to this project in the future. I had a fun month with TiddlyWiki, but it was also very time consuming to make it work the way I wanted and to adjust the looks and feels.

For now I am exploring other ways to organise and publish my notes. Typora (.md) files + 11ty static site builder (html, css, js) + espanso text expander for code snippets. I like the idea of having my notes by default as seperate static files on my computer in a universal format. And I am more comfortable with html/css/js than learning tiddlytext.

At this point in time the learning curve is way to high for me to optimize the interface and workflow the way I want with TiddlyWiki.

I think TiddlyWiki is still a super tool and is very promising with all what's done. But at the moment a bit too inconsistent, difficult to use. Plugins help but then everything is very patchy.

I know for many people TW is a hobby. But I just want a tool that works, I don't want to tinker with it every day, keep fixing bugs and inconsistencies. 

Therefore, I think it requires a different organised approach to asses the vision and make it more modern, matching the nowadays needs and expectations (RoamResearch, Obsidian content editor, static site builders...).

If somebody is serious about this, I would be willing to join to help shaping the new vision and design in the future.

Cheers.

[Birthe C]

Edgaras,

I think that is very understandable. I hope that we will see you later on if/when you have more time. Afterall you did taste the "fruit".

Birthe

[Diego Mesa]

I strongly agree with Edgaras statement:

At this point in time the learning curve is way to high for me to optimize the interface and workflow the way I want with TiddlyWiki.

I think TiddlyWiki is still a super tool and is very promising with all what's done. But at the moment a bit too inconsistent, difficult to use. Plugins help but then everything is very patchy.

I know for many people TW is a hobby. But I just want a tool that works, I don't want to tinker with it every day, keep fixing bugs and inconsistencies. 

Therefore, I think it requires a different organised approach to asses the vision and make it more modern, matching the nowadays needs and expectations (RoamResearch, Obsidian content editor, static site builders...).

Versions of this are often  echoed by new users!

[Mat]

Edgaras wrote:

[...] I just want a tool that works, I don't want to tinker with it every day, keep fixing bugs and inconsistencies. 

One tinkers to make it fit ones needs though. The typical alternative is that you can't tinker with it and that it therefore compromises your needs.

IMO the lack of turn-key TiddlyWiki solutions is a consequence of us not having any central place where to publish stuff. If this, or something equivalent, existed we would see applications i.e turn-key versions of tiddlywiki for different use cases. Currently we have official so called editions that are more tools than applications, and the applications that people do publish just fade away as nobody finds or hears of them a week later. If there was something like an app store, there would be encouragement to actually publish stuff and continue to develop it and I'm sure more key-turn solutions would come.

<:-)

[BirgitB]

I can confirm most of what has been said about the lack of documentation or the abundance of obsolete documentation. I started looking into TiddlyWiki on April 26 and I wasted quite some time figuring out what to do and what not to do. Luckily I discovered the videos made by Francis Meetze (?) on the second or third day.

Although the broad picture is still confusing me, I managed to solve all but one issue on my wish list. I have configured an application that works for me, although my coding skills are next to nothing.

As I had written in an email to Jeremy a couple of days ago, I would like to redistribute my "application" to the members of the largest German association of translators and interpreters, approx. 7,000 members. At the same time, I will publish an article about TiddlyWiki5 in our trade journal, and maybe also some kind of manual on the first and most important steps.

In order to make sure I get everything right and do not publish obsolete information it would be great if someone could help me. If possible, preferrably someone who can read German. If not, I can provide an English translation.

Thanks in advance,

Birgit

[Rizwan Ishak]

Hi Edgaras,

I respect your decision. Tiddlywiki is a great tool, but people are different with different priorities and no single tool can meet them all. I hope you find joy in your new note taking system.

As someone interested in improving tiddlywiki to a point where people like you will be able to use it more comfortably, I would like to know more specifically what did you find difficult  to accomplish.

I am asking this because I see that your current choice is markdown and eleventy. Personally I do not see much difference between markdown markup and tiddlywiki markup. Given that HTML is the target for both, ultimately what markup we choose is pointless. Given that basic characteristics offered by markdown and wikitext are the same, and wikitext offers more possibilities (which are optional), I often find it interesting that users prefer markdown.

You are clearly comfortable using terminal. So static site generation is not an issue too. 

Again, I am not criticising your choices. We are all knowledge workers and what works for us is what we ought to choose. I am merely trying to satisfy my curiosity.

You seems like a person who would enjoy writing in a proper text editor than in browser. So I will leave you with a suggestion. Use VSCode and TiddlyBob next time you want to give tiddlywiki a try. Bob will update what you time in text editor almost instantaneously in browser, so that you can see the finished product. VSCode has its own snippet manager and tons of other useful plugins.

Sincerely,

Riz

--
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[Scott Sauyet]

On Monday, May 18, 2020 at 3:51:00 PM UTC-4, Riz wrote:

> Personally I do not see much difference between markdown markup and tiddlywiki markup.

The very first thing I do on starting anything new with tiddlywiki is to install the Markdown plugin.  I spend a great deal of time on GitHub/GitLab, on StackOverflow and many other places where some flavor of Markdown is the default.  It's not simply muscle memory -- although that's part of it -- but the simplicity is quite welcome.

> Given that HTML is the target for both, ultimately what markup we choose is pointless.

Ah, but I think of HTML as one possible viewing target.  I read Markdown in many ways, and one of the most common ways is in the original format.  Where Markdown really shines is in how readable the basic format is without any translation.

Of course tiddlywiki markup is much more powerful, and all the TW tools are at your disposal when working in it.  So for anything more complicated, I use it.  But for writing basic text I've found nothing more useful than Markdown.

  -- Scott

[Edgaras]

Mat I think there is a bit of difference tinkering in tiddlytext and in something widespread and future proof as html/css/js. I don't mind tinkering more in html/css/js. Maybe it's my personal 

preference, but I find it more universally applicable and reusable. So many things can be built in JS these days, it's worth learning it, but that's another topic.

I strongly agree with central place where to publish stuff. Imagine if there was a website where top solutions are promoted, voted up. Those would get attention and be improved by donations and contributions. Over the month with TW I kept discovering great stuff, just couple of days ago I discovered Tekan by Riz. Truly amazing example of how TW can be anything.

–––––––––––––––

Riz I am up for a discussion and feedback! I really want to help TW. Let me try to explain.

Given that HTML is the target for both

This is not true for me. I only want to publish some of my notes. It's important for me to also build a personal knowledge system. With the right format and organisation system Niklas Luhmann developed his "second brain" – the Zettelkasten modular noting system just by using paper notes. I want to achieve similar with modular human readable, file based digital notes. Markdown fits perfectly for this purpose, the format is universal, very portable, supported by many editors, systems. Add front-matter and all together it's a quite powerful format.

So I agree with Scott here. Markdown is a strong original source readable format. I like the idea of starting with Markdown (in some cases JSON or CSV) as a base data/model format 

and then add logic and structure with html/css/js.

Next very important thing for me is the editing experience. If I spend a lot of time writing, I want it to be pleasant and calm. That's why I love Typora, a super minimal text editor, doing

one job well – editing content. The editing interface is separated from my data files, I can change to another editor at any time I want. That being said, I wish Typora had some of the

RoamResearch superpowers. And funny enough something like that was released couple of months ago – Obsidian. I think in time we will see more and more editors that are made 

for interconnected thoughts, complex thinking.

I use VSCode but it's optimized for coding. The interface is way too complex for writing.

Maybe that's another thing that I would like to see in TW – much more separation between building the tool/tinkering and writing, thinking connecting thoughts. It's like when you are driving a car you don't wan to see all the engines and electronics.

I also wish TW could be more of a tool that connects well with other tools and workflows and not so much of a monolith system (that is super modular but internally).

I see it as probably the most powerful, deeply customisable CMS. But the best CMS systems are HeadlessCMS. 

I think every headless CMS system should:

1. Allow variety of custom seamless inputs.

2. Have well designed interface and customisable interface.

3. Allow variety of seamless outputs.

Basically do the job well and interconnect with other systems and formats.

[Rizwan Ishak]

Glad you find Tekan amusing.

So if let me try and summarise.

If markdown was the main markup system, users would find TW5 more accessible?

On Tue, 19 May 2020, 05:41 Edgaras, <edgar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Mat I think there is a bit of difference tinkering in tiddlytext and something widespread and future proof as html/css/js. 

Also there are much more resources, people had every single problem thousands of times. 

I strongly agree with central place where to publish stuff. Imagine if there was a website where top solutions are promoted, voted up. Those would get attention and be improved by donations and contributions. Over the month with TW I kept discovering great stuff, just couple of days ago I discovered Tekan by Riz. Truly amazing example of how TW can be anything.

–––––––––––––––

Riz I am up for a discussion and feedback! I really want to help TW. Let me try to explain.

Given that HTML is the target for both

This is not true for me. I only want to publish some of my notes. It's important for me to also build a personal knowledge system. With the right format and organisation system Niklas Luhmann developed his "second brain" – the Zettelkasten modular noting system just by using paper notes. I want to achieve similar with modular human readable, file based digital notes. Markdown fits perfectly for this purpose, the format is universal, very portable, supported by many editors, systems. So I strongly agree with Scott here. Markdown is a strong original readable format. I like the idea of starting with Markdown (in some cases JSON or CSV) as a base data/model format 

and then add logic and structure with html/css/js.

Next very important thing for me is the editing experience. If I spend a lot of time writing, I want it to be pleasant and calm. That's why I love Typora, a super minimal text editor, doing

one job well – editing content. The editing interface is separated from my data files, I can change to another editor at any time I want. That being said, I wish Typora had some of the

RoamResearch superpowers. And funny enough something like that was released couple of months ago – Obsidian. I think in time we will see more and more editors that are made 

for interconnected thoughts, complex thinking. 

I also wish TW would become like that one day – a tool that connects well with other workflows and not a monolith system (that is super modular but internally).

I use VSCode but it's optimized for coding and not for writing. The interface is way too complex for a writing tool. 

Maybe that's another thing that I would like to see in TW – much more separation between building the tool/tinkering and writing, thinking connecting thoughts. It's like when you are driving a car you don't wan to see all the engines and electronics (while some people still would enjoy that).

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[Edgar B]

Definitely I think markdown should be the default to reach broader masses. The focus should be on easy to use interface, easy markup language. Tiddlytext can stay for configurations and customisations, but users don’t need to get there easily, it can be in settings.

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[Mat]

Edgaras wrote:

Definitely I think markdown should be the default to reach broader masses. The focus should be on easy to use interface, easy markup language. Tiddlytext can stay for configurations and customisations, but users don’t need to get there easily, it can be in settings.

Markdown is a simple punctuation-to-HTML conversion. WikiText features exact equivalents to this. People can stick to using only this - if they are OK with that it isn't very powerful.

In addition it features several other, much more powerful, tools that do things that markdown cannot accomplish. 

So what are you actually suggesting?

Thanks!

<:-)

[Rizwan Ishak]

May be TW5 can offer an edition where wikitext markup mimic the markdown syntax. It won't be hard, a few regex changes in 20-25 parser tiddlers. That way new users don't have to deal with learning a new markup. If they do not intend to dive deep to use widgets and macros and all, they can simply stick to using just what they want.

I know there are markdown plugins which offer different levels of functionality. However, users have to know about their existence. Plus if I remember correctly, the core markdown plugin keeps the text and metadata in separate files? Like the CSS and JavaScript tiddlers. So that might not work for users like Edgaras who use a markdown editor to create new files, rather than tiddlywiki itself. 

I don't see any outright negatives in such a move. 

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[Odin Jorna]

As a recent user of TiddlyWiki, with no coding experience, I agree with a lot of Edgaras has said in his posts. TiddlyWiki is highly customizable, but there is also a high barrier of entry to it.

I think new users would use the lists-link macro, but most of their writing would just be text, with some formatting. And the formatting is already different from most other options around. In almost all text-editors I used a # means a header. But in tiddlywiki it makes a numbered list. Same for *italics* in markdown and //italics// in TiddlyWiki. To me this adds friction, because I need to learn a new formatting style. Yes, there is a markdown plugin for it to work around it, but finding plugins aren't the user-friendliest experience either.

Because when I was looking for plugins, there are multiple online lists, personal plugin libraries, and this forum to spit and search through. There is a big time investment to look for plugins that do what you need. I once spent a lot of time trying to do something myself, but only afterwards realising there was a plugin for that case. When there is a build in system (the plugin library) within a TiddlyWiki it is weird to me that it is not being used (outside of just the official plugins). Instead everyone hosts their own plugin and you'll have to find the website and drag & drop it from there. It would be a lot easier and helpful for new users to have a central list of plugins in a plugin library that is accessible from TiddlyWiki within.

Thirdly, I agree with the comments about the editor experience. I take study notes that I store in TiddlyWiki. because I think TIddlywiki can serve well as a Zettelkasten-like. But taking them within the text-editor of a tiddler itself isn't that nice of an experience. It is just a plain text box with a lot of buttons and fields around it that can be distracting. I noticed that I gravitated towards taking my notes somewhere else that was easier on the eye and less distracting and then copying my notes in TiddlyWiki. But then I run into the problem that most other text editors use another type of formatting style.

In summary, I think these three points can really help new users ease into TiddlyWiki more:
1) Change the formatting towards the common standard (*italics* and #header instead of //italics// and !header)

2) Make user made plugins accessible from within a plugin library in TiddlyWiki. A central place to publish plugins.  (instead of them being scattered around online lists and forums)

3) Update the tiddler editing experience to a more modern design that is easier on the eye and less distracting

The reason I am still working with TiddlyWiki, is that I also kinda enjoy fiddling with it. I like the potential to be able to fit it to my own needs, something other software doesn't have. And I love it for it (and also because of the help i've gotten on this forum). But I think this isn't the case for a lot of potential users. They just want something that works out of the box and I think the amount of mentions elsewhere of Stroll as a roam replacer is proof of it. People are willing to try out something that is already designed around a user-case, but may be turned away by the friction/upfront time investment that still exists.

Op dinsdag 19 mei 2020 02:48:30 UTC+2 schreef Edgaras:

Definitely I think markdown should be the default to reach broader masses. The focus should be on easy to use interface, easy markup language. Tiddlytext can stay for configurations and customisations, but users don’t need to get there easily, it can be in settings.

On 19 May 2020, at 02.43, Rizwan Ishak <madapeed...@gmail.com> wrote:

Glad you find Tekan amusing.

So if let me try and summarise.

If markdown was the main markup system, users would find TW5 more accessible?

On Tue, 19 May 2020, 05:41 Edgaras, <edgar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Mat I think there is a bit of difference tinkering in tiddlytext and something widespread and future proof as html/css/js. 

Also there are much more resources, people had every single problem thousands of times. 

I strongly agree with central place where to publish stuff. Imagine if there was a website where top solutions are promoted, voted up. Those would get attention and be improved by donations and contributions. Over the month with TW I kept discovering great stuff, just couple of days ago I discovered Tekan by Riz. Truly amazing example of how TW can be anything.

–––––––––––––––

Riz I am up for a discussion and feedback! I really want to help TW. Let me try to explain.

Given that HTML is the target for both

This is not true for me. I only want to publish some of my notes. It's important for me to also build a personal knowledge system. With the right format and organisation system Niklas Luhmann developed his "second brain" – the Zettelkasten modular noting system just by using paper notes. I want to achieve similar with modular human readable, file based digital notes. Markdown fits perfectly for this purpose, the format is universal, very portable, supported by many editors, systems. So I strongly agree with Scott here. Markdown is a strong original readable format. I like the idea of starting with Markdown (in some cases JSON or CSV) as a base data/model format 

and then add logic and structure with html/css/js.

Next very important thing for me is the editing experience. If I spend a lot of time writing, I want it to be pleasant and calm. That's why I love Typora, a super minimal text editor, doing

one job well – editing content. The editing interface is separated from my data files, I can change to another editor at any time I want. That being said, I wish Typora had some of the

RoamResearch superpowers. And funny enough something like that was released couple of months ago – Obsidian. I think in time we will see more and more editors that are made 

for interconnected thoughts, complex thinking. 

I also wish TW would become like that one day – a tool that connects well with other workflows and not a monolith system (that is super modular but internally).

I use VSCode but it's optimized for coding and not for writing. The interface is way too complex for a writing tool. 

Maybe that's another thing that I would like to see in TW – much more separation between building the tool/tinkering and writing, thinking connecting thoughts. It's like when you are driving a car you don't wan to see all the engines and electronics (while some people still would enjoy that).

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[Mat]

Riz wrote:

May be TW5 can offer an edition where wikitext markup mimic the markdown syntax. It won't be hard, a few regex changes in 20-25 parser tiddlers. That way new users don't have to deal with learning a new markup. If they do not intend to dive deep to use widgets and macros and all, they can simply stick to using just what they want.

Maybe, and it is worth exploring. I'm very curious about it but I suspect the combo of "limited" but not "specialized" would not bring anything useful. I.e it would then be an odd behaving editor where you can style your text. What would people do with it? What is it for? 

In my "syntax idea collection thread" I posted that it would be an improvement if widgets were embedded into macros to spare the users from seeing the complex looking widget syntax. If users accepts using macros they'd have infinitely more power than mere markdown.

<:-)

[Rizwan Ishak]

The idea is to get users to use widgets and macros, definitely. However, the question is how to get them to that level quickly. If the syntax for normal things like headings, bold and italics are something they are already familiar with, users don't have to spend time picking them up. That time could be better spent on learning things like macros and widgets.

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[Mat]

Riz wrote:

The idea is to get users to use widgets and macros, definitely. However, the question is how to get them to that level quickly. If the syntax for normal things like headings, bold and italics are something they are already familiar with, users don't have to spend time picking them up. That time could be better spent on learning things like macros and widgets.

You're right. It would be desirable to distinguish user levels clearly. What I mean is to identify levels where each level only adds a limited set of tools. Even the most basic level would be sufficient for some and they should not see any other stuff unless they look for it. And if they look for it, they should first see the next level, not the next-next level.

This is mainly a documentation matter. Also, some UI stuff would need default hiding (e.g the Type field in the editor, or even the whole custom fields area, just to name two concrete examples.)

<:-)

[Edgaras]

Mat I don't mind building widgets and using macros to simplify them. Actually I would like to choose my own templating language. In static site builders like 11ty or Gatsby you also use something like Liquid, Nunchucks, Handlebars as a templating language. Kind of like macros that run widgets (written in html/css/js).

If I use 11ty static site builder and Typora as a simple editor, I can start really simply writing markdown and serving static websites, styling a bit with css. That's still kind of technical, as many things need to

be tweaked in code editor and terminal. in TiddlyWiki this could be achieved much more smoothly.

So, I am not saying remove all that power, all I am saying let's think twice what acts as a default. And let's strategically design how progressive enhancement works.

Let's start with:

- Simple sexy editor in markdown, or tiddlytext that work like markdown. (a lot of inspiration out there for simple editors). View and edit should be one mode.

- Make linking, backlinking, mentions, simple transclusions (reuse blocks) easy and visible.

- Make it easy to automate building process and scheduling/publishing static sites to any hosting, ftp, dropbox, github pages etc.

- Complexity can be added at any point by suggesting cheatsheets (icon in editor), predefined macros snippets, adding fields to tiddlers, or even customising and coding.

But there should be clear seperation between developing and just writing. I don't want to see system files /:$*&&^$^%#^# everywhere.

[PMario]

Hi,

I think it would be possible to give the TW default (i)nfo section more love. At the moment, it is hidden by default. So users need apps like stroll or others to find out, that the whole backlinking mechanism has always been there. Just 1 click away.

Many users have to go a long way, and hack the ViewTemplate to add something, that has always been there. Just 1 click away.

IMO it would be easy to add a little checkbox to the tiddler info area tabs, which allow them to add the backlinks info at the end of the tiddler ViewTemplate. The same should be true for most other tabs in the info section.

If someone wants to see the "tagging" info, they should get a "TagglyTagging like" experience if they need it (plugin).

I also think, that the info button should be part of the EditTemplate. Same thing here. Most elements of the editor can be hidden behind it. Checkboxes allow them to be part of the EditTemplate. So it should be easy to remove the "type-field" selector and the "add fields" elements.

It would also eliminate type field dropdown and opens up much more space to add docs to the selections.

Even the tag-editor and the title field can be removed, except, if the tiddler is named New Tiddler or something similar.

With a mechanism like this, plugins can add "reference / backlinking" output into the tiddler info section OR at the end of the xxTemplate, and the user can decide, if and when they want to see this info.

Similar to this example: https://wikilabs.github.io/editions/slant-01/#04-clicking-tag-opens-tagmap ... If you click a tag, it will open something that I called "Tag Map".  It is part of the info section, but it could also be part of the ViewTemplate. ... With a little bit of tinkering, it can look like TagglyTagging or something else, that a user may need.

If the (i)nfo button would be part of the default UI, I'm pretty sure users will click it, because it is something special and they want to know, what's behind it. I'm sure, the "more" chevron is completely ignored by most users.

At the moment the Info button is hidden. The main argument is: We don't want to "clutter" the default UI. .. But as it turns out, especially the EditTemplate is way too cluttered. So let's add an info button and remove the rest, that is not needed for new users.

I think we can pretty easily get an edit-UI, that Edgaras envisioned at: TW revamp linked in the OT.

Creating a simplified "starter UI", that has the full power backed into, is doable. Plus some intro videos similar to this one, I think we can go a long way.

There is a PR at GitHub and a demo wiki at tiddlyspot: http://4460.tiddlyspot.com

Just some thoughts.

have fun!

Mario

[Mat]

PMario

It is a GREAT idea to use the info area as a mini-type controlpanel for the tiddler, especially to set which view/edittemplates to show.

Overall I think transclusion enables control both to be central/global for the wiki and local for specific contexts. I think this is under-used in TW. 

I also think, that the info button should be part of the EditTemplate. Same thing here. Most elements of the editor can be hidden behind it. [...]

 

Hear hear.

 

Even the tag-editor and the title field can be removed, except, if the tiddler is named New Tiddler or something similar.

Hmmm...  ;-)

 

With a mechanism like this, plugins can add "reference / backlinking" output into the tiddler info section OR at the end of the xxTemplate, and the user can decide, if and when they want to see this info. 

Similar to this example: https://wikilabs.github.io/editions/slant-01/#04-clicking-tag-opens-tagmap ... If you click a tag, it will open something that I called "Tag Map". [...]

Not sure about that particular proposal - I think the current behaviour, i.e that you get a dropdown for the current tag is pretty good. 

However, interestingly, there is no "feature" if you click tags in edit mode. IMO this place would be useful for tag settings etc.

 

If the (i)nfo button would be part of the default UI, I'm pretty sure users will click it, because it is something special and they want to know, what's behind it. I'm sure, the "more" chevron is completely ignored by most users. 

Where do you propose the content from the chevron should go? Or should the chevron stay and there should be four default toolbar buttons?

<:-)

[Rizwan Ishak]

How about we start a organisational Repo in GitHub called TW5-Community and work collaboratively on the wizard Jeremy asked for? It would take the noise out the main repo. Once Jeremy is well, we can loop him in. 

Sincerely,

Riz

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[Mat]

I'm up for it but with two disclaimers:

This month I have a lot of (real) work on and off. Comes in "lumps".

I suck at Github so my PRs would be via demos etc at tiddlyspot and someone else would have to do the merging. 

If that is OK, then I'm in.

<:-)

[Edgaras]

Riz I think that's a good idea and would get the ball rolling. I can contribute with UI/Visual Design, html/css coding, even some js.

I am also busy upcoming 2 month with my thesis and other work, but I could jump in when I have time.

To start out we could outline a priority list, maybe make initial sketches so we agree on the direction and the most important things to achieve.

I created a Google Docs, we can all edit.

[PMario]

On Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 2:03:46 PM UTC+2, Mat wrote:

I also think, that the info button should be part of the EditTemplate. Same thing here. Most elements of the editor can be hidden behind it. [...]

 

Hear hear.

:) ... You know, that I'm not the biggest fan of hidden information. That's why I think there needs to be some info in the "minimal UI", that points the users to the advanced configuration. We shouldn't get a lot of help requests that start with: "I want to enable ...... but I cant find it." ... If this happens. We did it wrong.

 

Even the tag-editor and the title field can be removed, except, if the tiddler is named New Tiddler or something similar.

Hmmm...  ;-)

Yea, ... maximum vertical working area. Especially for phones, imo this will make a big difference. I really hate the editing experience with my phone. The title input, the tag-editor and the toolbar already need more than 30% of the vertical space. The keyboard nedds another 40%. So there isn't much left atm.

 

With a mechanism like this, plugins can add "reference / backlinking" output into the tiddler info section OR at the end of the xxTemplate, and the user can decide, if and when they want to see this info. 

Similar to this example: https://wikilabs.github.io/editions/slant-01/#04-clicking-tag-opens-tagmap ... If you click a tag, it will open something that I called "Tag Map". [...]

Not sure about that particular proposal

Just an example, who it could be.

 

- I think the current behaviour, i.e that you get a dropdown for the current tag is pretty good. 

... With the phone .. Imo NO. There is room for improvements

 

However, interestingly, there is no "feature" if you click tags in edit mode. IMO this place would be useful for tag settings etc.

I'm not sure, what this means.

 

 If the (i)nfo button would be part of the default UI, I'm pretty sure users will click it, because it is something special and they want to know, what's behind it. I'm sure, the "more" chevron is completely ignored by most users. 

Where do you propose the content from the chevron should go? Or should the chevron stay and there should be four default toolbar buttons?

The chevron needs to stay and there should be 4 default buttons. I also want to make it easy, that the info area stays open as a "per tiddler" setting. With a new button: "Close all open info sections"

-mario

[Edgaras]

Very good article by Typora founder, why it does not make sense to have view/edit as different modes:

https://abnerlee.github.io/typora/2015/03/11/why-typora/

Bautiful

I haven't seen a Markdown editor that combines the simplicity and effectiveness so well.

[Edgaras]

Alright, I gave another shot for the prototype. I accept the fact that redeveloping the core editor might be too big of the task from the beginning... That's unfortunate, 

but I adapted the prototype to keep the current editor:

Key changes:

- View/edit in two modes instead of one

- Moved "Meta info" section down

- To mimic the card style, I added a border to the tiddler, so it will be visible when there are more than one.

- Moved favorite start in the same line with tags

Important part about this design is that you can edit everything on tiddler right away without going to edit mode, except the main body of the tiddler, that requires editing mode.

See the video 🎬

And try the prototype in Figma 📐

[Rizwan Ishak]

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Modern, minimalist, true to TW5 nature and professional. I have been keenly following this community for the past five years, and on the visual aspect of matters, this is the best thing that has happened by a wide margin. 

If there an invisible priority list for stuff to be put into core, I would vote for this to be on the top of it.

Once Jeremy finds his strength back, ping him to this thread and take his view, so that this would be a reality. 

Sincerely,

Riz.

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[Joshua Fontany]

I agree with Riz, this is very very good design. Definitely looking forward to seeing more from you!

Best,
Joshua F

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[TonyM]

Folks,

Strong values expressed in this reply are my personal feelings based on complex concepts, and I do not intend insult to anyone, if you feel I have slighted you somehow, you miss readme. I would rather express my ideas then self censor.

Scanning this thread, I see a lot of value to read in detail as well, Whilst I empathise with Edgaras I would like to respectfully suggest that often we want more from tiddlywiki not because it can't do it, but because we have prior experience of something different. We cannot get to know tiddlywiki on the first "date",  The markdown vs wikitext is a key example, Markdown is trivial, and Wiki Text markdown equally so, it takes minutes to reorient, I have edited WikiPedia the Tiddlywiki in the same hour, it is not a problem. Any thing markdown delivered wikitext can also. 

However filters and other features employ the use of at least 4th generation coding structure such as the powerful list processing in tiddlywiki. The new user will see these quickly, but to then say tiddlywiki is too complex is is like refusing Santa's gifts because they are too colourful. 

Tiddlywiki is full of shiney tools and possibilities, like walking into a well appointed toolshed, you should expect at first it may seem complex, but before long you will recognise the hammer the saw etc...

Given I now have a much deeper understanding of tiddlywiki (more than a decade experience) I see virtually no barriers to doing anything in tiddlywiki, and since it is based on html/css/javascript many of the skills one gains to understand tiddlywiki are transferable. When I do see barriers I try and get around them or encourage others to, however tiddlywiki's capabilities are so expansive its possibilities are already infinite.

With the sudden influx of new enthusiasts during these covid times I see trends perhaps from tiddlywiki naivety, I do not agree with, but it can be hard to express the arguments because it involves technical and value based judgements.

• Propensity to solve perceived gaps with Javascript before knowing how to do it in wikitext/Macros and widgets
• A Strong focus on exporting static files (A strength but only one of the reasons for tiddlywiki), consider exporting whole tiddlywikis.
• Tiddlywiki's capabilities seeming complex, not because it is, but because it allows you to be.
• People placing demanding expectations on tiddlywiki, which it can meet, born from any solution they like on the internet. Yes tiddlywiki can adapt those methods and present them, but it can do this for most algorithms and solutions. To maintain this versatility requires uniquely tiddlywiki solutions that take time to learn, Why?, because it remains versatile, not to one personal preference, but to many peoples desires.

Tiddlywiki is an adaptable chameleon unlike almost any other comparable solution, unless someone has shared an edition, you must not expect to be spoon fed a solution that resembles a much less capable subset of tiddlywikis features, why would you want that when you can future proof yourself with much more?

Sure these qualities of tiddlywiki may be a barrier for many, but I have swallowed the red pill and I am not going back, nor would I want to loose functionality for tiddlywiki to appeal to more people.

My key focus of late is opening capabilities and removing barriers I find, most of which few people would come across anyway, this is because I have adopted the tiddlywiki platform as the key technology I can develop any solution on, in the future. In time you will see easier methods to do many things, I have a large library in the wings, which I intended to share, If mohamad and other has not done too good a job of it before me :) 

I hope my alternative view helps people understand tiddlywiki better.

Regards

Tony

On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 3:59:32 AM UTC+10, Edgaras wrote:

[Edit] read the original post under the line below

UPDATED: 2020-05-21

Google Document outlining the strategy for redesign: TW Rewamp Outline 📄

Link to the latest prototype (on Figma design tool): TW revamp v0.03📐

Link to the videos of the prototype: Prototype videos🎬

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Hello everyone!

I've just recently discovered TiddlyWiki (crazy it's been around for 15 years already!) and I am very pumped up about it! It's not only a great note taking tool, but it's also a powerful CMS + Static Site Builder!

I think that TW deserves and has a potential of reaching broader audiences! 

However, one of the biggest drawbacks for me is the design of TW. And not only the visual design, but also the whole experience of using it. The functionality and features seem very powerful (and I am just scratching the surface), but the first time experience of using the tool is not very pleasant. I really think we could greatly improve the visuals and usability of TW, to match the other modern tools, and people expectations.

This would address many of the root causes of these problems: Rethinking tiddlywiki.com

I am experienced UI designer and I am willing to volunteer on creating a new minimal and simple, yet still powerful TW theme!

I am looking for a developer who knows TW well and who wants to collaborate on creating this new theme. I code myself a bit, but it would be way more effective to collaborate with a bit more experienced coder.

If there will be more interest, I will share all the design files on Figma, so anybody can give feedback and we can improve the designs together!

Anyhow, I would like to know if anybody can also see the value in what I am talking about? 😊 

Cheers!

- Edgaras

[Reet Pandher]

I'd appreciate if y'all can also focus on making some very basic functionalities accessible to those who cannot code.

For e.g.

1. A properly labelled color palette like i suggested here.
2. Edit: Simplify the existing font option in control panel.
   
3. Ability to create a todo list without writing a macro (add a todo list option into the editor.)
4. Ability to collapse text inside a tiddler (or at the very least allow us to create a shortcut for things like these)
   
5. A proper(and up-to-date) guide on wikitext shortcuts that work in TW5.
   
6. If possible have some color coding inside the editing section(For example color code the headings(Exclamations}, indents{colons} etc.) because currently i feel lost when writing large amount of text. And looking at the preview pane everytime is just so distracting and slows me down significantly.

I feel that stuff as basic as that will go a long way to help us lowly non-coders :)

[Odin Jorna]

This looks really great and up to current standards. I think this effect could be done via a combination of a plugin and a theme for the current TW5.

Op donderdag 21 mei 2020 00:26:11 UTC+2 schreef Edgaras:

[Edgaras]

TonyM thank you for your in comment from the bottom of the heart.

I will reply fast not to be rude, but I have to focus on other work today, and I am not that fast at writing.

What I am scanning from your comment (and I will read it again later) that the new theme will prevent users to customise TiddlyWiki to the detail as they can now. That's not at all my intention.

First, this is just a prototype, not everything is shown. Second, even if we develop this, everything cannot be built at once, we must make priorities. But ideally, the new theme

should have all core features of TiddlyWiki. When I have time I can show that more in the prototype. It would help alot if you could give some specific  examples of tiddlers that just cannot be missed.

My main point with this theme is not to neglect the customisation power, I am all in for teaching people about widgets and macros. This is just a theme/plugin, 

and my point it to focus this theme on digital knowledge workers who want the best editor experience, very customisable tool and a static site builder. I have these needs and I know many people has.

At the moment I am just not completely pleased with the looks, and all the clicks I have to make to get to where I want. The writing experience is currently too distracting for me. And the static 

site building process is not straight forward (I still could not figure out how to mix my own css and tiddlywiki css for static export, and to get a clean code). More on that for another time.

What I also forgot to include in this iteration:

☑️ Users should still be able to access toolbar and new cheatsheet pop-up icon when editing text.

☑️  Features of Stroll (more accessible backlinks, freelinks etc. link typing suggestions...)

Once again, this is just a prototype to have more concrete discussion going on, please write your specific suggestions for improvement here or edit the TW Revamp Outline

[Saq Imtiaz]

I second that the way to work on this is as set of plugins and a theme that comprise a new vertical edition. Low fidelity prototyping only gets you so far. After enough real world testing and usage in the wild, learnings can be considered for adoption into the core.

It is worth remembering that for the core we have to keep in mind the needs for backwards compatibility, which apply to some extent to UI as well. It does not mean changes cannot be made, but rather that they would need to be well thought out, tested and possibly part of a larger set of layout changes that warranted breaking backwards compatibility.

Working on this a separate vertical edition does not suffer any similar constraints and will get the ball rolling as well. While Jeremy's input is always valuable, in no way is progress on this front dependent on him.

In terms of implementation:

- there are a few solutions I have seen for adding/editing tags in the view template posted to this group. My own is visible in the hangouts video recently posted. All are relatively trivial to implement.

- at some point I worked on a in-place edit feature for the text of a tiddler, which was then abandoned in favour of my Notation editor. The key there is that even with an in-place edit, what gets edited is not the same tiddler but a draft of it. This preserves the draft features of the core, avoids refresh issues and lets you cancel without saving changes. I can try to dig up my old code if necessary, but this isn't difficult.

Hope this helps,

Saq

[Edgaras]

Joshua, Riz thank you for encouragement too.

Reet Pandher yes, I think users should have power to customize font, and properly customize colors in the settings. I would appreciate if somebody could make a quick sketch or outline of desired settings panel. 

Then I could include that to design of the prototype.

Also good ideas with out of the box todos, collapsing tiddlers, cheatsheet/shortcut guide/popup, color coding editor. Thanks! (yes yes, it all exist with plugins, let's put it all together)

[Saq Imtiaz]

@Edgaras don't be discouraged. There is merit in your suggestions and requirements, even if they differ from those of others. I think you have done well by sidelining the requirement for a better editor for now. Not because it is not important, but rather because it is a large and challenging undertaking and at this point will probably prevent from getting the ball rolling for now.

I would also recommend that we reframe this conversation not as a redesign of Tiddlywiki, but as creating an alternative UI on top of TiddlyWiki that emphasizes certain features (i.e. a vertical edition as we call it). Yes, certain features and abilities will get underplayed in favour of more affordances for others, and that is OK for now since we are not replacing the UI in the standard distribution. 

Later, learnings and experiences from this process can be fed back into improving the default UI as well. In other words, an incremental approach, using real world usage data and user studies to make improvements and changes.

I think identifying the key requirements for this edition and purposefully limiting work to those features at first, is the best way to initiate progress, 

Hope this helps,

Saq

[Edgaras]

Saq Imtiaz design and development should go in parallel, always ping pong and inform each other. Yet, at this point when many are familiar with TW in depth, it's important to step back and

take a fresh look what we would want, without worrying for a second what is possible. We can always scale back and make sure it's all backwards compatible with the core.

I only design because I cannot code TW yet, if somebody can code please do, if somebody have specific changes to the prototype, please tell. From my design practice I can also tell,

prototypes are very powerful, but it often scares people as they perceive it as a final thing. It's just an iteration that can be changed completely. Just a way to show ideas concretely and visually. 

But I understand the concerns of braking the core, so for sure the development should be careful.

- Regarding the tags, please write a short specification here or in TW Revamp Outline or make a small hand sketch.

- Goot point, I have to put considerations into existing draft system. Again, specific no-gos, specifications would help. Currently the in-place editing is only for title, tags and meta info, but not the body,

as you can see in the prototype. To edit the body you still have to go to draft mode, maybe I need small icon or text to signal that. Another though, even with the in-place title editing, maybe

it's possible to switch tiddler smoothly to the draft one.

[Edgaras]

Saq Imtiaz thank you. Yes, I think it's better to go with the current editor (for now).

I don't know how to "reframe" the conversation, I tried to change the title of the thread, but I can't. Should we move to another thread? I am also not sure what "vertical edition" means to be honest.

Yes, certain features and abilities will get underplayed in favour of more affordances for others, and that is OK for now since we are not replacing the UI in the standard distribution. 

Yes, that's the key point with this adoption. Still, all the features should be accessible in one way or the other. Prototype might be confusing in that sense, as it does not include it all. 

Identifying key requirements -yes, would be so helpful to have an agreed outline here: TW Revamp Outline

Thanks again!

[Tony K]

Edgaras i love what you did

do you have any plans for a full screen edit with split view edit / preview ? 

[Mat]

@Edgaras, that's really great stuff. As Saq says, the way to the core or the standard edition goes via plugins for backward compatibility but also because it more easily allows an iterative process with community input and testing.

@TonyM, you're lifting the issue to a general critique of how many newcomers approach TW. While I partly agree, you're hijacking Edgaras thread here. None of your bullets are about what is being discussed here other than in some meta sense.

@Edgaras - some specific opinions:

• The + at top right corner, i.e "create new tiddler", is a too frequently used to be so subtle and off center. 
• Consider that on wide monitors, things that are stuck to the sides can get very distant.
• What are the do/redo arrows for?
• For smoother acceptance, I'd suggest not changing stuff that are not part of your direct proposal. For example, I imagine that using another edit icon isn't really a feature you really care for. And while the white background is perhaps pretty, it washes out the tiddler. I understand that's a matter of opinion but, then, I don't think it is the background coloring that "makes TW difficult" which I believe is your general target objective. 
• For meta info area: Custom fields are way more used than Content type.
• There are a few system fields e.g color, _canonical_uri, list, class that IMO would benefit from more exposure (still in the meta info area) to raise awareness of them (because they're useful). Not sure exactly how it should be manifested, so I'm just saying.
• I want to immediately see if a tiddler is being edited or not. I guess part of your mockup is about hiding this but something needs to make the distinction immediately obvious. I suggest making the Done button (i.e the checkmark) be in red color while editing anything. This is subtle, yet distinct and is equivalent behaviour to the whole wiki Save button.

A thing to consider is that TW is almost exclusively for personal use. "Practical" is more important than "Pretty". While most of us probably prefer minimalism, it is still critical with immediate access to e.g the sidebar lists etc. I think a good rule of thumb is "The more used, the more prominent it needs to be"

Thank you for working with this, Edgaras! Your thoughts come at a good time also, considering Jeremys ideas for big changes that, BTW, may, or may not, be backward compatible.

<:-)